Cellar Management
Keeping beer, cider and wine at their best, from delivery to the customer's glass.
- Explain how beer is brewed, and the difference between cask, keg and lager
- Keep the cellar at the right temperature, and spot problems early
- Control stock, check deliveries and rotate products
- Keep the cellar clean, hygienic and free from pests
- Condition cask ale and connect keg products correctly
- Clean beer lines safely, and work safely with dispense gas
Each unit is a short narrated presentation with its own knowledge check.
From grain to glass: ingredients, brewing stages, and cask, keg and lager.
The single most important factor in beer quality.
Less waste, better cash flow and fresher beer.
A clean cellar means quality beer and a safe business.
Cask ale is alive. Look after it and it rewards you.
Couplers, dispense gas and the perfect pour.
Clean lines mean quality beer. This is non-negotiable.
This unit could save your life.
Everything you have learned leads to the perfect pint.
Everything from the presentation, set out so you can read it at your own pace and come back to it later.
The award is built from nine short units that follow the journey of a drink from brewery to glass. You start with how beer is made, move through temperature, stock and hygiene, then cask ales, keg products and line cleaning. Gas safety sits near the end because it protects your life, and the final unit pulls everything together in product quality and customer service. Each unit ends with a short knowledge check.
Ingredients, brewing stages, and cask, keg and lager
The cellar environment and cooling systems
Container sizes, ordering, deliveries and rotation
Cleaning routines, pests and personal hygiene
Stillaging, venting, tapping and serving
Couplers, gas, dispense and the perfect pour
The 7-day rule, procedure and chemical safety
CO2 dangers, alarms and emergency procedures
Checking quality and handling complaints
Four numbers sit behind most good cellar practice. Cask ale is happiest at 11 to 13°C, beer lines should never go more than 7 days between cleans, and a cask should be sold within 3 days of venting. The fourth is 0.5% carbon dioxide, where an alarm first warns you. Each has a reason, and you will meet them again as you work through the units. Look after the cellar and it looks after you.
The cellar looks after more than draught beer.
A cellar often looks after more than draught beer, so the same care applies to wine, bottles and soft drinks. Wine wants somewhere cool, dark and steady, with corked bottles on their side, and each style has its own serving range. Bottles and cans in display fridges need rotating so older stock sells first. With post-mix, a watery, flavourless drink is the clue that the bag-in-box syrup has run out and needs changing.
- Store in a cool, dark place with a steady temperature, ideally around 10 to 15°C
- Bottles with corks stored on their side keep the cork moist
- White and rosé: chilled, around 7 to 10°C
- Red: cool, around 15 to 18°C, not warm room temperature
- Display fridges at around 3 to 5°C
- Rotate stock: older bottles to the front
- Change bag-in-box syrup promptly when it runs out
- Watery, flavourless drinks mean the syrup is empty
Cellar management is as much about protecting profit as it is about quality. Waste falls when staff pour correctly, losses are recorded, and you order to demand and rotate stock. Clean, simple back-bar displays help customers see what you sell. A weekly stock count, always done the same way, means any gap between what you bought and what you sold shows up quickly. Every pint poured away or over-filled is profit lost.
- Train staff to pour correctly
- Record ullage and wastage
- Order to demand and rotate stock
- Customers cannot ask for what they cannot see
- Keep back-bar displays clean and simple
- Count stock weekly using the same method
- Investigate any gap between stock and sales