Brewer's Association updates online beer and food service course with new vids and expanded material.
Training staff, especially younger legal drinking age servers with little or no awareness of beer styles, can be head-scratchingly difficult for many operators already overwhelmed and understaffed.
Now, in an updated course focused on bringing beer and food together, the Brewers Association is offering a newly revised and comprehensive training and education resource for operators that features expanded food pairing tips, tricks and videos. For a taste, watch the video below.
The not-for-profit BA has expanded its CraftBeer.com Professional Beer & Food Course to nearly 100 pages and now offers four supplemental digital videos to showcase the practices featured in the course. Coauthored by Brewers Association and CraftBeer.com executive chef Adam Dulye, and Julia Herz, craft publisher and beer program director, the curriculum is designed especially for culinary institutions, restaurateurs, chefs and beer educators.
“According to a recent Nielsen survey, nearly half of craft drinkers say they drink beer with food ‘always’ or ‘often,’” says Herz. “Beer pairing is more than a trend on the rise and many chefs are building their careers around it. The information in this course educates and emboldens culinary students and professionals to be leaders in their field when crafting food offerings and creating beer pairings.”
Since the course launched in fall 2014, more than 9,000 copies have been downloaded and ordered by beer and food professionals as well as top culinary and hospitality programs, including The Culinary Institute of America, Johnson & Wales, Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center, and more.
While many customers at craft-friendly restaurants are highly knowledgeable about beer styles and food pairings, the vast majority still look to servers as the front line of an operation’s knowledge base. Servers who leave the table to “ask the manager” when customers ask questions about the beers served not only waste valuable time, they reveal that a bar or restaurant isn’t staffed with people who know what they are selling. Not exactly confidence building.
“CraftBeer.com’s beer and food course underscores our commitment to educating chefs, restaurateurs and beer educators, and is an invaluable tool for anyone looking to lead in pairing,” said Chef Dulye.
The course teaches how to bring craft beer into the kitchen and onto the plate with five in-depth lectures, including two beer tasting sessions detailing 10 popular beer styles, as well as menu planning tips and recipes. Four digital videos (An Introduction to Beer, Beer Service and Storage, Beer Styles, and Beer and Food Pairing) accompany the course.
Additional content updates include information on pairing craft beer with food; tips and tricks for designing beer dinners; strategies for communicating beer knowledge to customers; how to store, cellar and serve beer properly; and an instructor guide and final exam.