Get Into Bar Tending - Guide To Responsible Serving & Beer

• Hospitality
• Further Education (Key Stage 5)

Responsible Serving

• Who are you?

• What got you interested in bartending?

• Do you have a favorite bar?

Responsible Service

• Enhances guest safety and well-being.
• Prevents over-intoxication, underage service, and potential liability.
• Builds trust in venues and contributes to long-term career success.

Diageo Bar Academy offers a concise, interactive Responsible Serving e-learning module (~15 mins), covering:

• Accurate drink measuring
• Understanding alcohol units
• Applying alcohol guidelines responsibly in service.

Completing the module awards an industry-recognized certificate of completion.

Putting It into Practice

Measuring Correctly

Always use tools like jiggers or marked glassware to pour standard measures—key to consistent and responsible service.

Spotting Over-Intoxication

Look out for guests showing signs like slurred speech or impaired coordination.

Handling Underage Customers

Always ask for valid ID; be confident and polite when refusing service if needed.

The Essential Guide to Beer

After water and tea, beer is the next most consumed drink across the globe, and now more than ever your customers will want to know more about how the flavours come together in the beer that they are tasting.

Building Blocks of Beer

Building Blocks of Beer

Good beer starts with good water. It extracts the flavours from the ingredients during the brewing process. Hard water or soft water traditionally had a bearing on the style being brewed.

Malted barley is the backbone of a beer, providing the sugars and nutrients for the yeast. Malt also adds colour and flavour to beer, particularly when using speciality malts and roasted barley.

Hops act as a spice to give a traditional bitterness to beer. They also add incredible flavour and aroma to beer during brewing, and act as a natural preservative..

Yeast is added to eat the sugars and turn them into alcohol, CO2 and add some flavours. Yeast falls under three main categories: Ale Yeast, Lager Yeast and Wild Yeast.

Malting - This is the process of steeping, germinating and kilning barley to convert it into malt. Malt will give beer its colour and flavour.

Milling - This is the official first stage of the brewing process, where malted barley is crushed into a fine powder called grist.

Mashing - This is where we add the grist to water and heat it over an hour, converting the starch in the grain into sugar.

Lautering - This process separates the sweet sugar liquid, called wort, from the grain husks.

Boiling - The wort is sterilised and hops are added for flavour and bitterness, over 90 minutes.

Whirlpooling & Cooling - The wort is transferred to the whirlpool where the leftover hop material is separated. The liquid is then cooled before adding the yeast.

Fermentation - This is where the yeast is added, and over a number of days it converts the sugar to alcohol and CO2.

Maturation - This is where the yeast continues to flavour the beer over time and helps mature the flavour of the beer.

Filtration - This removes all the remaining yeast and clarifies the beer before packaging.

Packaging - Where beer is packaged into keg, bottle or can.

Beer Styles

There are well over 400 different styles of beer being brewed around the world today - that's a lot! 

However, almost all of those beer styles fall under three broad categories: 

Beer Styles

LAGER

The world’s most popular beer type; the fresh, crisp-tasting lagers that we know so well have a history that goes back hundreds of years – and a distinct set of flavours and characteristics.

Lagers tend to have more subtle malty flavours with a very clean, crisp and refreshing finish.

Popular lager styles include: Pilsner, Helles and Bock styles

Beer Styles

Ale

Full-bodied, often with a sweeter, fruity taste, ales are popular the world over, with historical records showing that they’ve been produced and enjoyed since the earliest times.

Ales are malty and warming, with a generous aroma and a smooth finish. Hops play an even bigger part in both flavour and aroma too.

The ale category of beer includes a range of styles, such as: Pale Ales, India Pale Ales (IPAs) and Red Ales.

Beer Styles

Stout

Although stouts are technically ales, the stout category offers plenty of variety and taste experiences for the true beer connoisseur. Guinness is, without doubt, one of the world’s most recognised stout brands, but there are many more stouts to discover.

Stouts can be dry or sweet. They are full-bodied, rich and satisfying. The reward for exploring this category of beers is the flavours of coffee, chocolate, caramel and more.

Mapping Flavour

No matter which style, ingredients used or brewing process, the moment of truth for all beers is 'what does it taste like?'.

Understanding what our own beers taste like and how to describe them to your customers, friends or family is one of the most fundamental things that we all need to do, no matter where we work. This is where the flavour map comes in.

Hoppy & Complex

Strong hoppy aromas of floral, pine, citrus or herbs contrast with roasty, coffee notes. 

The taste is rich and strong with a distinct bitterness at the back of the throat.

Hoppy & Clean

Mainly lagers. Starting with the European classics to the right, these beers get more hoppy and complex as the move to the left. 

Beers on the far left are in the very hoppy area.

Malty & Clean

This is where we have the clean, crisp lagers - low hop levels, clean refreshing taste. 

These are the classic American lagers. Japanese and Amber Lager have more hop notes.

Malty & Complex

Complex beers with a less bitter character, often with strong cereal and bready aromas. 

Sweet biscuit flavours and a subtle hop bitterness predominate.

Mapping Flavour

SERVING GREAT BEER

Serving Great Beer

There's an art to serving great beer.

It takes practiced technique, a focus on quality and the skills to recommend. If any of these aspects are missed, the customer's experience won't be as great as it could be.

GLASSWARE

It's more important than you might think to maintain glasses properly, as they can dramatically affect the quality of the beer!

- Glasses must be clean, cool, chip-free and crack-free.

- The wrong detergent or badly washed glasses is not only unhygienic, but will result in poor head retention on your beer.

-Air drying glassware is best, to avoid paper and lint being left behind.

TEMPERATURE

It's a fact that beer stored and served at the right temperature stays fresher for longer, and tastes better.

Starting with the cellar or cold room, the temperature should be between 8° and 10° Celsius at all times.

- Beers should be served to the right temperature for the style.

- In general, lagers tend to be served colder than ales and stouts.

SERVICE ISSUES/FAULTS

These can include fobbing, flat beer, or beer that is cloudy or the wrong colour. These faults can be caused by:

- Inconsistent dispense and storage temperature.

- Dirty lines.

- Faulty equipment.

- Gas pressure.

- Old beer.

- Not following the perfect pour procedure.

CLEANLINESS

There are two main aspects to cleanliness in serving beer: clean lines and a clean bar.

Cask, keg, cider and stout lines should all be cleaned a minimum of every 7 days. A rigorous cleaning procedure with effective detergents is key to guaranteeing yeast-free lines. Dismantle nozzles and taps, and clean in a sanitising solution on a weekly basis.

When you're not serving, try to do at least one of the following:

- Wipe and dry the front or back bar top.

- All bottles on display should be wiped clean.

- Empty bar mats or drip trays into the sink.

Changing a Keg

• Disconnect
• Replace
• Secure & Test

SERVING  BEER

& CHANGING KEGS