Building ‘beer connoisseurs’ through Red Stripe’s Beer Love Academy

Red Stripe is helping beer lovers, bartenders and bar operators to better appreciate, serve and enjoy the beverage. Through its Beer Love Academy, the company is aiming to raise the standard and improve the careers of professionals in the industry through skills development.

According to Red Stripe’s Head of Corporate Affairs, Dianne Ashton-Smith, the programme is about building beer connoisseurs.

“It is about helping people to understand what makes a beer, how beer came about, the importance of it, how to serve, and how to pour,” she explained.

Ashton-Smith added: “It is also about strengthening their skills in customer service, responsible consumption and the sale of alcohol, and so it’s a broad scale.”

All graduates from the programme are dubbed ‘certified beer advisers’, with a range of skills covering customer service, responsible serving, bar skills, product knowledge, and employability (soft) skills.

The certified beer adviser course was developed and piloted with 16 existing bartenders, some of whom were working on cruise liners but had now found themselves at home due to the COVID pandemic. The training sought to provide a greater appreciation for and understanding of beers, with the intent that bartenders would now be better placed to provide superior service.

Ashton-Smith is proud of the strides made by the programme over the years and the positive impact on customer service.

“The other day, we went to a restaurant for our team-building activity as the management team, and a young gentleman, who was serving at the restaurant, said, ‘Miss, you don’t remember me?’ He said, ‘I graduated from your programme many years ago.’ And can I tell you, his service was excellent,” she emphasised.

“However, what was great for me was that one of my counterparts, who was sitting with me, said, ‘Dianne, I’ve been here before, and he was the bartender and he was amazing.’ So, it’s not because I was sitting here why he chose to give great customer service, but he poured his beer perfectly, he was always at the table making sure we were okay. So, I can guarantee you, if I can go by that most recent experience, the work that we are doing is bearing fruit, and we are seeing a change in customer service.”

Another component of the Beer Love Academy is the upgrading of the business competency of bar operators. In partnership with HEART/NSTA Trust, 13 bar operators from Kingston and St Andrew were registered to participate in an online micro-entrepreneurs certificate course. The training began with the provision of training by Foundation team members in the areas of soft skills such as conflict resolution and team building; general topics like health and safety, COVID-19 tips; and general rules on stocktaking. Classes began in 2021, with the sessions provided by HEART.

However, bartenders and bar operators are not the only beneficiaries of the Beer Love programme. “The programe is for bartenders, but we have an offshoot of it as well, in which we are actually teaching consumers. We have a YouTube series, which we call ‘Beer Love’, and this is where we have our beer adviser and our ‘beer bae’ taking our consumers through similar lessons around the history of beer, quality, what goes into making a beer, how you serve it, and with what foods it is best paired. So, while we have a two-week programme within the Beer Love Academy, we also have our Beer Love series on our YouTube channel, which allows consumers to hear more about beer,” Ashton-Smith revealed.

Of course, during holiday and entertainment activities, beer is oftentimes a must-have and Red Stripe’s head of corporate affairs offers a few pointers to keep in mind when entertaining. “The first thing I would say is definitely, they must not serve or make it accessible to anybody under the legal purchase or drinking age, which in Jamaica is 18.”

Additionally, Ashton-Smith is advising consumers to have beer with food. “Food helps you to slow down the absorption of alcohol in your bloodstream. Space your drinks even though you’re at home, intersperse with water, and of course, you know we have Heineken 0.0; so they can also have that on offer if they don’t want to consume alcohol,” she pointed out.

Finally, Ashton-Smith recommended that consumers do not top up their drinks. “Make sure you’re watching to see how much you’re consuming and not just topping up as you go along. Finish the drink (in hand first), then you go to have another one; and make sure it is, of course, consumed responsibly.”