Glass Rinsers
Every Glass. Every Time.
An often-overlooked yet very necessary tool for creating a positive drinking experience for your customers is the humble glass rinser. Properly cleaned glassware enables properly poured beers. A hallmark of a great beer program is a team that consistently creates and fills beer-clean glasses. The glass rinser is one of the last tools your team has to ensure that the beer you created arrives at the customer in the way it was intended. Skipping the glass rinser has multiple negative effects on the final impression of your beer. In this post, we’ll talk about why the glass rinser is important and how to train your staff on its use.
First things first, what is a glass rinser, and why is it important? A glass rinser is ubiquitous in breweries, restaurants, and bars. A glass rinser is a mounted sprayer designed to clean out the inside of glasses more thoroughly than handwashing or a dishwasher can. It functions by pressing an inverted glass onto the rinser, which activates the water jets to rinse out the glass, especially targeting hard-to-reach spots. The glass rinser should be connected to a filtered, cool water source.
The glass rinser should be the last step you take before you pour your beer. It is important to train your team that EVERY glass gets rinsed with the glass rinser EVERY time before pouring a beer.
A glass rinser is important for several reasons.
First, it rinses away any residual sanitizer and residue inside the glass. Anything left over in the glass after the cleaning process, but before the serving process, needs to be flushed from the glass so there are no lingering unwanted aromas or flavors.
Second, a glass rinser will wet the surface of the inside of the glass. The extremely thin layer of water on the inner surface of the glass acts as a lubricant that reduces friction between the glass and the beer, which means less unwanted foam.
Third, a glass rinser helps cool down the temperature of the glass, which is important for a couple of reasons. First, the cool rinse water will make the glass temperature more uniform throughout, which means less foaming potential. Second, while we don’t ever want to use frosted or frozen glassware, we also don’t want to use warm glassware, such as glassware straight out of the dishwasher. Glassware that is either too cold or too warm will cause the beer to foam, which leads to waste.
The glass of beer set down in front of your customer should look as good as it tastes. Every glass of beer should have the following:
No bubbles on the side of the glass in the liquid portion of the beer
Enduring foam head of about 1/2” to 1” thick, depending on the style
Proper clarity and color for the style
Lace formation down the side of the glass as the customer drinks
It’s important to properly care for your glass rinsers as part of your daily and weekly maintenance routine. First, make sure your rinsers are hooked up to a cold water supply. Second, make sure that the water supplying your rinsers is filtered and free of aromas, particularly chlorine. Glass rinsers should be washed every day with warm, soapy water, followed by a warm water rinse, and then activate the rinser for 30 seconds to make sure all the soap has been cleared. On a less frequent basis - weekly or biweekly - you should completely disassemble the glass rinser and all components and thoroughly clean them. The rinser disassembly and cleaning can easily be incorporated into your bi-weekly draft system cleaning.
Simple Sensory: Glass Rinser Side-by-Side
The glass rinser side-by-side is a quick, easy, and effective sensory exercise to teach your team how big a difference using a glass rinser makes in the flavor of the beer.
MATERIALS NEEDED:
2 glasses for each team member (4-oz. flight/sample glasses work perfectly)
Sufficient beer for each participant to receive ~2 oz/glass (water or other liquid works fine if avoiding alcohol is a consideration for anyone)
Glass rinser
PROCESS:
Divide the glassware into two sets: one set that gets rinsed and one set that doesn’t.
Prepare the beer, if needed. For this exercise, draft beer is usually the most convenient and cost-effective, but packaged beer works, too.
For the set that gets rinsed with the glass rinser, rinse each glass thoroughly on the glass rinser and set aside.
For the set that does NOT get rinsed with the glass rinser, pour about 2 oz. of beer into each glass.
Pour about 2 oz. of beer into each rinsed glass.
EXERCISE:
Each team member receives two glasses of beer: one rinsed glass sample and one unrinsed glass sample. Which sample glass is which should be kept anonymous from the participants.
Instruct each participant to sample the beer in both glasses, paying particular attention to any flavor differences they note between the two samples. In a perfect world, participants will evaluate the samples on their own and not engage in discussion until the designated time.
Ask participants to indicate which glasses have been rinsed and which glasses have not.
OPTIONAL: You can also ask participants to observe any differences they see in the appearances of both samples.
DISCUSSION: It’s important to discuss the WHY behind the HOW. While the exercise alone is effective, engaging your team in discussing the exercise will make a much more lasting impact. Below are some suggestions.
What flavor differences do you notice between the two samples?
What is the dominant aroma you detect in each sample?
For the unrinsed glass, do the flavor differences you detect have a positive influence on the beer?
When are some instances where you’ve skipped rinsing glassware? (Note: this should be a good-faith inquiry aimed at process improvements, not a disciplinary expedition)
Why did you skip rinsing?
How can we address the instances we’ve identified where glass rinsing gets skipped?
What process improvements or awareness can we implement?
If you see a team member skip the rinsing step, what are some ways you can remind them of the importance of this step?
If, after pouring a beer, you realize you forgot to use the glass rinser, or you see that the glass is not beer clean, what should you do?
Learn more about staff and group training opportunities by visiting the Training & Consulting Opportunities page.