Cellar to Glass: the surgery's open!
Tech services have been brought into the 21st century with the launch of a trouble-shooting beer quality website for publicans.
By logging onto www.cellardoctor.co.uk licensees can diagnose and treat cellar and dispense problems - often without having to call out a technician - and get free advice on improving their beer quality.
Cellar Doctor has been developed by brewer Greene King over the past 12 months and it's open to any publican with access to the internet, not just its own pubs.
It's a response to growing concern about poor beer quality across the trade, highlighted on the site's home page.
Greene King has pulled together results from several surveys showing that a large minority of pubs are failing to hit the basic requirements for serving a good pint (see box).
Customer technical services manager David Carr said the shock figures were "a key driver behind the development of Cellar Doctor".
"The question was how could we get important advice and information out to licensees and pub managers to help them," he says.
"The world wide web is the biggest tool out there and by making use of it we can take cellar management into the 21st century."
David appreciates many licensees are wary of using the internet and with them in mind the site has been made simple and easy to navigate.
Once on the site you have a choice of 'cask' or 'keg' and can then click through to find general advice, based on the BII's Award in Beer and Cellar Quality, or 'fault finding'.
Symptoms such as fobbing or cloudy pints can be traced to faults which licensees may be able to put right themselves.
Beyond the troubleshooting aspect of the website, Greene King hopes Cellar Doctor will raise awareness of beer quality issues across the trade, and is just one part of a raft of initiatives the brewer is planning to drive up quality across the pub industry.
Justin Adams, managing director of Greene King Brewing Company, is right behind the idea.
"Our job goes beyond the beer leaving the brewery gates," he says.
"Bad beer can lose customers from the pub and the brand forever. Conversely, a reputation for great beer will encourage people to return time and again.
"It's a big win for licensees because by concentrating on quality, for very little investment, they can increase profits quickly."
See www.cellardoctor.co.uk
