The Getaway - part I.

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that not every pub out there is like mine; out there in the vast expanse of the Welsh countryside are pubs just like mine in some respects, but sadly with no captain at the helm. Nobody to steer them through murky waters, stormy seas, and cloudy bitter. Luckily for these lost vessels, if the company gets their way, they will be shuttling me off to try and run one of these Dickensian hellholes sooner rather than later. Yes, it would seem the regional management are extremely keen to train up existing staff for management positions rather than nabbing licensees from other breweries and chains, who may not be familiar with our way of doing things. And as far as essential qualifications go, I had been looking pretty damn hot, it must be said. Except for one niggling detail.

Personal license? Check (I greatly enjoy using it as a form of identification when asked to prove my age in pubs - luckily, I still look young enough to be asked - "why this, my fellow? This is my license to sell alcohol on licensed premises. Don't you have one?"). Teambuilding & Human Resources? Check. Conflict management? Fucking right, wanna fight about it? Food Hygiene? Check. Fire Safety? An everso slightly singed check. There was but one space on my admittedly impressive CV - cellar control.

Cellar control - previously called cellar management - is the brewery's refreshed course for making sure you can step into their pubs' back passages without blowing shit up or wasting their hard-scrounged money. As daunting as a cellar looks to an untrained eye, most cellars are the same in essence - the same technology powers them all, the barrel caps are not proprietary so they're a standard wherever you are, and only subtle differences remain (e.g. the storage of the cask stuff, be it standing or rack - and even that is becoming standardized as the five-day nightmare of properly tapping, treating, ventilating, pegging, de-pegging, re-pegging, spiking and draining a racked barrel is thankfully being shown the door in favour of vertical barrels which you just tap two days before expected use, slap the spike into, and away you go). The previous course was very much a "rack barrel" approach, as it took way too fucking long to accomplish what could be handled in one day with only a smidgen of common sense. There were training manuals on cellar management and lots of them, as well as some vague details on the the farming of hops (a predominantly German activity, apparently) and a load of other stupid bullshit that wouldn't be worth a wank if your cooling system's ice wall has melted and you have twenty people waiting on a hot day. Noting that the course was producing a new breed of booksmart landlords that couldn't manage their way out of a paper barrel, the brewery decided to - and this is from the pages of the preview book I was sent - "spice things up", condensing "the time-tested traditions and wisdom of centuries in the trade" into an "action packed day of multimedia learning, peer-based activities (including managing a real live cellar) and a free lunch with a pint on us".

Without sewing too glamorous a button on it, it was quite simply the most strenuously insipid day of my entire life, that passed by as slowly and laboriously as a slowboat being dragged along a mile of grit road by a half-dozen aging cattle. Watching paint dry seems like a truly high-risk venture compared to the rigorous boredom we had to endure on cellar control - it was more like watching dry paint.

I turned up on the day and made my now-familiar way to the conference room to discover that I was part of a visible age rift - half a dozen in the room were my age, nippers being groomed by the company to climb the ladder (despite the fact that this particular ladder is up the side of a burning building, there is an obese, sweating, naked man waiting at the top, smiling at you with a toothless smirk and a bloodied knife in his hand, and the ladder is covered in extremely angry bees) and the other half was the company's elders, people like our Henry who run proper pubs and know their hops, barley and yeast, let alone their onions. I got around to talking to a few of the elder people on the course and I (along with the other young'uns) was extremely lucky - we chose to attend, everyone else was there against their will. It would seem that cellar control is a course that the company will stick you on if your pub has "stock issues".

While at first I thought this meant wastage - an unavoidable part of the job when you consider the shit that is left in the bottom of the barrels (shit that we are expected to put in a glass and sell to somebody) - it is also applied to people that are returning too much stock. So let's say your pub is in a bad area; you have a few slow weeks, or the smoking ban put its foot up your business' arse (the Wetherspoons up the road has a better environment for smokers but because your pub isn't a JDW gaff, you've had to put up one poxy umbrella and hope for the best as the smokers take their fags and dosh elsewhere). Somebody with half a brain could look at that and say they need more money for advertising, or a drinks promotion, or something to get business moving - not (and I repeat not) that these people, who have often been in the game since Watergate, don't know how to manage their cellar. But evidently, this company is not run by people with a modicum of intelligence. It is run by the kind of people who will employ a man like Benjamin, the veritable Mr. Motivator of cellar control that the company paid (with money, I remind you) to stand up - in front of a room that mainly consisted of people who had been pulling pints for years, in some cases for generations in their family - and patronize the living shit out of them with a straight face. Something, it must be said, he did extremely well.

"OK gang," Ben 'hollered' - his terms, not mine - before whistling by sticking two fingers in his mouth (something he would do throughout the day at ear-splitting volumes, often directly after lecturing us on the importance of clean hands). "Welcome to the show... ha, not really. It's more a presentation than a show. It's literally just a bit of a video to begin with and then we're heading over to the Reproba Inn." Ben had already cemented his reputation with high-pitched whistling and incorrect use of the word "literally". I could tell this would almost certainly be an interesting day for all concerned.

The first part of cellar control was particularly gripping as we were welcomed into the conference room by a man who had the physical and mental properties of an overexcited puppy, and then asked to sit down and shut up while the lights were extinguished and a "short film" was shown. Made in approximately 1842, it was a triathlon of tedium consisting mainly of the trials and tribulations of "our man behind the bar" (dressed to the hilt in ruffled whites and a bowtie as bar staff have a habit of doing; I love training videos that show bar staff in these immaculate outfits that haven't seen a spillage or vomit stain in their freshly-pressed lives) as he addressed a number of cellar- and bar-based complaints. The video was clearly aimed at all those people who win the lottery and dream of running a pub, but haven't the first fucking clue on the magical process involved in making it so that when you pull the tap, some beer comes out that you can drink - because showing it to anybody who has so much as seen a crude crayon drawing of a cellar is an insult to their intelligence (it is, in fact, more the equivalent of kicking their intelligence to the floor and beating it to death with a sack of potatoes). Three concerns were addressed:

Good conduct in the cellar.

The world's most distinguished bartender (with whom I felt a strange affinity, as I do with any and all bar staff, fictional or no - I feel their pain, even if it has been scripted) - who could only have appeared more distinguished had he been sporting a top hat, a monocle, and a photograph in his overstuffed wallet of his gigantic plastic hotel on Mayfair - has apparently had a spot of bother in the cellar; his cask ale has stopped pouring, and we were then invited to pause the video and discuss the probable cause of this. We were even offered a selection of potential answers - could it be down to the cellar being the wrong temperature? Well, unless the video was so old that it heralded the coming of the ice age, resulting in the beer freezing in the lines, I'd imagine not. Or - and here comes the gigantic spoon to feed us the conclusion - could the barrel have run out?

"Barrels can run out at any time," boomed the noble barman with an expression of sheer wonderment, as if the finite nature of a sealed metal container was a revelation of Darwin-esque proportions. With this, he then went about changing the barrel. Anybody who has worked in a real, working pub environment will be vaguely familiar with the process of changing a cask - take the spike out of one and put it onto the next one (there should already be one that is tapped so that you're not - excuse me - putting the spike in too soon). Simple. The process is only dangerous if you are some sort of monumental cretin, which our host certainly was. We all watched with mouths agape as the barman put on a white laboratory coat, goggles and gloves, and then changed the barrel as if any sudden movements or sounds would detonate some sort of beer bomb. It was in stark contrast to the last barrel I changed, which involved clambering over a heap of empties, falling into a pile of promotional Kopparberg umbrellas (it was very kind of the folks at Kopparberg to send us these to break my fall, considering we have absolutely no intention of ever stocking their product - so Kopparberg, if you're reading this, thank you very much and I hope you send us plenty more free shit for me to land on) and sticking the spike into the new barrel with the kind of force usually only seen in Dracula films, where the villagers peel off the lid of the coffin and drive the spike into the beast by flaming torchlight. I then ran it through at the wall, fell on the umbrellas again, and resurfaced looking as if I had been trying to put the spike into the rear orifice of an already-disgruntled gorilla, who had extremely strong views on the whole situation.

Good conduct with glassware.

Just when our intelligence's wounds had begun to heal, it was once again called a fat jessie by the markedly elementary tape as we were then shown - in no uncertain terms - how to do a job that we had all been doing for what was easily a collective century or two. And let me tell you, they left nothing to chance, they covered absolutely everything.

"Never," began our barminding compadre, "use a dirty glass..." But before we could quite finish shaking our heads in disbelief, he decided to kick us once more while we were down. "...especially if it's somebody else's dirty glass." I think you'd be hard pressed to find a pub in the land that would give you a pint in somebody else's dirty glass (not one with a valid EHO certificate at least), but it must be a pressing concern for good old Admiral Mental Disorder to deem it relevant enough to mention. After this lecture, we then cut to a transitional shot of the barman drying glasses with a bar towel, something inherently worse than serving something in a used glass. Swing and a miss.

Good conduct with the pumps.

"When serving cask products after a barrel has been changed," announced the barman as he placed a pint of what appeared to be sewage on the bar, "check to see if you are experiencing clouding issues." Clouding issues was perhaps too generous a term for the problem that afflicted the pint that we saw before us. I've had moaning bastards in my time - people who think they can see a slight haze on the glass and will refuse to drink it even after the science of condensation has been explained to them in all its wondrous, glass-chilling detail. But even if Richey Dixon - the veritable bishop of moaning old sods - brought that back to the bar I would have to ultimately concede defeat and apologize for my mistake in rigging up the best bitter line to the sceptic tank. There was actually stuff floating in it, that warranted a collective squirm from all in attendance. We've all served dodgy pints, but that really took the biscuit (then vomited on the biscuit and put it in the glass with the rest of the unidentifiable crap that was supposed to be "beer sediment").

After our man had safely disposed of his pint of shit, urine, pus and bits of old shoe put through an industrial blender, we were then taken so far back to basics that even John Major would have said it was taking the mick. Yes, we were shown - in shakey, 1980s taped-from-the-TV VHS quality - how to pull a pint of everything on the bar. However, this time, we had the added bonus of the "NO" siren. A time-tested learning technique, the NO siren was the sound of a brash siren followed by the word "NO" plastered across the screen using the best technology the 1970s could buy. Our man tried to pour two pints at a time - NO. That's generally a bad idea. Our man tried his absolute damnedest to put a gallon in a pint glass, resulting in a drip tray that more closely resembled a public swimming pool. NO. I began to feel sorry for the barman, as this life of siren-blasted depravation was clearly getting to him. Everywhere he looked, there waited the gigantic digital super-imposed NO (and the siren, which I had not heard used sincerely since the original rave movement) to bring him into line. So what if he wants to throw an ashtray full of burning cigarettes into a plastic binbag? For God's sake, when the Beer & Pub Association find out which pub he works at - where modern practices are apparently not welcome and they season their own repugnant produce using raw chunks of human excrement - he's a dead man anyway, let him have a bit of fun. Oh look, he just put a pint of cider in a glass with a lightning bolt crack down the side of it. NO.

We were all absolutely aghast.

I genuinely wondered what we would be shown next; possibly how to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide or put our underpants on in the morning without sterilizing ourselves. Luckily, before the barman could attempt to dispose of a broken glass by taking it to a nearby playground and leaving it on the swings, the lights came up and we were granted our freedom. If there's one job I never want - besides the poor bastard who had to go into the pub in which that video was set and turn things around, a task of equal enviability to making the Nazis seem like a great bunch of lads - it is trying to follow that video. Benjamin, for all his be-boppin', hip-hoppin' youngster style, did remarkably well by offering us something as a means of recompense for our wounded egos and battered brains.

"OK, if we're all ready to go, that's lunch." We were each handed a lunch voucher and told the directions to the canteens. We were also encouraged to discuss the day's events with our colleagues. I pulled up a chair and found a great mix of experienced managers and up-and-comers alike, all with a similar outlook to myself.

"What a load of fookin' crap," belted out Alan, a brash, burly Northerner who has since established dominance in Cardiff city centre by offering a combination of fierce drinks promotions and live sport. However, his Sky license ran out and the brewery forgot to renew it - while he waits until next week for business to resume its previous supersonic pace of business, his cellar stock got a little out of hand. Hello cellar management, and a day away from the pub for one of the most talented landlords under the company's belt. I have noticed something on these courses - people who make it to this level of bar work all, typically, get along. I am yet to meet a barman or a manager in training on a course that I haven't been able to get along with on some level. Much as Freemasons can often tell if there is another Freemason in the room, people who run pubs for a living have a kind of unspoken bond, an intangible connection that links us all like a macaroni necklace. And this is how a room full of people from all sorts of backgrounds and ages could bond over a free lunch in a large brewery.

"Yeah, it is a bit patronizing," I corroborated as I tucked into the (actually delicious) chili that had been prepared.
"Let me tell you, this course is not for winners." Alan did not mince his words. "Let me tell you something else, if there's any more of those cellar management books left on the course order form, I'll buy 'em and burn 'em." Alan was by far the most incensed of the group.

As the complimentary chili and rice was masticated and stored away for later, we had our tables cleared and were invited to leave the office building to head over to the Reproba Inn. We wandered across the road, unlocked the doors of the large red-brick building, and wandered into what was easily the creepiest pub I have ever been to. The Reproba is a pub that the company bought and maintains as a training facility - it is a real, honest to goodness pub, though. And this is what's weird about it - it is beautifully decorated, has a pool table, a dart board, an amply-stocked bar, toilets, the works. But there are no tills. No evidence of any wear and tear whatsoever - it is like walking into the dentists' waiting room, the Reproba has absolutely no atmosphere. A few games of pool ensued and a quick game of darts (which I am happy to report I won with a fantastic two-dart eighty-point out - treble sixteen, then double it. Oh, snap) before we were dragged into the cellar to be educated on what a cellar looks like.

Well it certainly took me by surprise, as I had no idea that cellars were supposed to be so clean you could eat off the walls and floors - our cellar has pools of crusty old bitter congealing on the floor from where we run the lines through on a new barrel, but this place was freshly painted white and stung the retinas. It looked like the shrinking room in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. What didn't help this image was the white laboratory coats we were issued, as well as the protective goggles as we played 'can you top this' with the glowing beacon of stupidity that had been the film we saw not two hours prior. I was half-expecting to be filmed and later added to an amended version of the original film, with a new bit in the "cellar conduct" piece in which they suggest it's not a good idea to take off your laboratory coat and attempt to strangle your instructor with it. While my primary reaction to Ben was "prick", I secretly envied him - anybody who can be as passionate about correct glassware and drink temperature as he is must live a life of unparalleled joy, thanking the lord on high for every sip of every pint in every pub across the land as he looks in his cupboards to see little translucent receptacles of happiness shining back at him. The only thing I care about is being a grumpy sod on the internet, and I don't get to do that for a living. That is something I do for my own benefit. This man loves his job and is paid to love it, as insufferable as he was.

"Who here wants a go tapping a barrel?" Before anybody could volunteer, Ben literally sprinted to the wall, grabbed the mallet, walked cautiously back as if handling a pair of scissors, and then showed us the correct procedure of barrel tapping. Maybe we had been doing it wrong - I was of the impression that you put the cap on the tap, turn the valve shut and just hammer it in, being careful not to turn your digits into pancakes as you work. No, apparently our method of "get it done within half an hour" is tantamount to suicide, as Ben crouched down by the barrel, leveled up against the plug as if squaring up for a putt, placed the tap in, timed the shot, and then after three, two - oh, hang on, half of us have nodded off, now he has to do it again. Fuck.

We were then invited to put the spike in the barrel (instead of the natural conclusion of shrink a gigantic bar of chocolate or express concern for the German kid who was probably shredded into bits by the factory's rather vigorous chocolate sewage refinery). Again, clearly missing the mark, I was shown that the correct way should not take any less than one minute - I used to think it was simply "take the spike out of one barrel and put it in another then level the pressure on the buoy on the wall" (a small plastic tube on the wall that has a plastic buoy inside - the tube has to be full of beer and the buoy must be at the top for the line to be fully operational). Apparently not. No, evidently this is a far too quick and efficient way of doing it and we simply aren't doing it slow enough. What I will say is I know why the Reproba is closed to the public; it's because there is absolutely no way you could ever apply these "ideal standards" in a real working environment. Yes you may get a slightly better experience if you do it the "proper way", but there isn't time. It's that simple. There is not enough hours in the day to "gently sink the spike into the barrel" as if we were scared of waking up the gorilla. The cellar fell deathly silent as the spike nudged its way into the barrel, millimeter by millimeter, eventually being driven all the way to the end of the barrel with a miniscule "dunk", pulled through at the wall and then pulled into a perfect pint in the bar.

Six weeks later, after we had all taken a turn in showing that we too could pretend to run a pub like a gang of drugged-up turtles, we were all signed off, given a free drink from the Reproba bar and allowed to go on our merry way. As a flurry of coats and jackets were hurled on and everyone made a move for the door, Ben whistled us back, holding a clipboard.

"If anybody wants an extra two days of paid holiday, we're offering a cellar control placement scheme at The Carpenter. Get to work in a real life pub, run the cellar with an experienced landlord? Opportunity of a lifetime, this one."
"The Carpenter? Where the hell is that?" enquired several of the elders, which led me to believe this was going to be slightly off the beaten path.
"It's in [name of town removed]." I was not wrong; this was so far off the beaten path that it's a miracle the company found it to buy it when they went property crazy back in the 1980s.
"Fuck that," guffawed Alan. "I run the busiest sports pub in Cardiff. Why would I want to be holed up in some horseshit field pub?"
"Well, this is more aimed at the younger -" But before he could finish, the room had emptied - the majority had spoken. Although that said, I was secretly glad that I would be getting the placement all to myself, as I strolled over to Ben to put my name on one of the numerous available dotted lines.

"Great, we'll be in touch." And with that, I caught up with the group and went for the traditional post-course analysis and drink at the amply-located Wetherspoons across the bridge.

To be continued...
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This entry is dedicated to Yourcodenameis:milo.