Bottle Shop Employees

Beer knowledge is everything. Talk the talk with confidence.

 

I would say beer knowledge is a good trait. But stocking and lifting is done way more then anything in my store. Yes it's nice to have great customer service but someone needs to put the beer away. All my newbies thinks it's gonna be all about the beer but it's not, there is a lot of stock to handle before the beer talk.

 

Demonstrate that you can carry three cases of bottles. And express that you'll take payment in beer. You'll be good.

 

Don't be a know it all douche. I once had a bottle shop guy insist that SN Narwhal was released in spring. Same guy also told me Stone oddyear releases didn't include regular releases. I still love him though, just don't think you know everything.

 

Beer knowledge and general people skills. I would say once every two weeks, you will get a basement dweller that asks "do you have this beer? what about this beer? do you ever get this? Ah I had it last night. It was pretty good." while showing me pictures of double barrel mexican cake, huna, some dark lord variant, and new glarus sours.

Edit: It is a blast.

 

As long as you have a general understanding of beer...

the most important thing is youre availability. You already have a management job thats 40+ hours a week? do you really want to work more? Thats the most important question. Sure it looks fun talking to customers and selling them on beers and learning more.. but the bulk of your work will be stocking shelves, ringing sales, and ordering if they want you to. Thats really not that fun (at least it wasnt for me)

 

Kegs you will be trained and be good enough with them very quickly. Do it.

 

My first job was working at a liquor store. We made the six packs by taking Bud out of the 30 packs. It was wild. I don't know if they still do that (or if anyone else even did that to begin with). We'd have a box full of the plastic six pack holders and be sitting on stacks of thirty packs just making those things forever. Makes me chuckle. Anyway, my advice is that you get really good at putting cans into those six pack holders and then you walk in, lay out six cans, put them in the holder as fast as you can (we used to have races) and then say "Interview over!"

 

Have you ever worked any kind of customer service before? You're going to be answering the phone and telling folks your hours just as much as having any kind of beer talk. And, the place needs to be swept, cleaned, and mopped. Shelves and coolers have to be rotated and stocked. It's a lot of dull, repetitive grunt work. It can also be a huge amount of fun, and, over time, you'll likely meet a lot of industry folks, which in turn may open other doors for you. Good luck!

 

The most challenging questions I get on the job aren't from other beer geeks, but the folks who know a small to moderate amount:
"I had a black & tan I really liked. Can you point me to something similar?"
"What's that beer that tastes like apricot? [I point to #9] Hmm, I don't think that's it."
"What would work well in a barbecue sauce?"
"When I was stationed in Poland, we had this great lager & I'm wondering if you have it."
Eventually you build up an inventory of "go-to" suggestions, but each day I'm thrown a new one. It's fun, but it really keeps you on your toes.

 

I count my lucky stars every day that I get to work in a bottle shop...it's actually the reason I got into craft. In short, it's the best way to stay up to date on what's happening on the scene at every level. You're always surrounded by a community of people who care just as much (if not more) about beer as you do. It's phenomenal.

The other night, I had a regular at my store save me a pour of Vanilla Rye for an hour and half while I finished up working another job. Cultivate relationships and work your ability to make and sustain meaningful connections.

Play up a willingness to do anything, too. It's my experience that a lot of smaller operations depend on extra elbow grease from every employee. The owner of my store used to joke that we would go from cleaning the toilet to selling a $100 bottle of wine. No joke, I've done this.

Which leads me to another point: profess an ability to converse with people on many levels of the beer game. You should be able to give good service to someone who's never heard the word "dopplebock" before as readily as you would someone who's asking about Foreign Export Stouts.

Feel free to BM me for more.

 

I used to make six packs from the cases at a bottle shop I worked at.

 

Oh man this brings back memories. You're certainly not the only one who engaged in this tradition.

 

Well, that's nice and all, but the money sucks.

 

At my store, Its alot of up and down ladders, lifting boxes, and product knowledge. Also filling growlers. You also have to be willing to show people beer you dont care for. Like for example, I have to take customers to Blue Moon daily. Of course I recommend their cash to stay local with other great Witbiers made here. Then you have to keep your specialty stuff knowledge on point.

If your store carries BMC or other mass produced things, be prepared to watch that stuff leave too.

Also, unless its dead and your responsible for pouring pints, you cant talk to customers too much. Yea you can shoot the shit for a minute or two, but other than that you gotta keep movin on the next customer or stocking job.

 

To be honest the biggest determining factor will be availability. If you plan on keeping your current job, I doubt you'll have much of a chance.

In the world of retail having open availability is everything.

 

Oh, the humanity!

 

Its an adjustment you have to make. Some people like it, and just move along. I just give them their water, and move to people like us who deserve my time. Of course Ill show them a great Kolsch to try to move them away from the Applebees beer.