#FUSS Tour of Gastown Part 2

For background on this project check Part 1 out first..

Hi Tuc,

Lovely to meet and talk with you on Saturday (we were the guys measuring your beers), here is the email I promised you.

I’m glad we could talk about the servings and I really salute the way you took on board what we said and that we could have a really collaborative discussion.

As you know we video’d pouring a serving into our cup and it fell a few ounces short of the 20oz mark, ending up around the 18oz mark.

As I recall you took down the reference to “pints” and told your staff that if anyone asks that the serving sizes are 18oz. Which is still a cracking deal on your happy hour tariff.

This is great news! The last step is to clearly post the correct serving sizes in accordance with the regulations this can be put on the menus or at the very least on your wall.

Some background: CAMRA BC as consumer advocates have a campaign called #FUSS, which for the last 2.5 years has been encouraging businesses that serve draft beer to comply with government regulation to:

Post serving sizes clearly.
Deliver that serving size within +/- 0.5 imperial oz.
Serve 20 imperial oz. of beer if a “pint” is posted.

Again, these are legal requirements not CAMRA BC’s rules.

Over the last few weeks we have been taking a lab-calibrated cup to various locations, last week we went to Commercial Drive and this week (Saturday 12th) we went to 7 locations in Gastown. In each location we would order a beer- a “pint” if available and then video ourselves pouring the drink into the measuring cup.

Please know that we are not picking on anyone, we have tried to get a good cross-section of watering holes including craft and non-craft, high-end and “lower” end, pubs, brewpubs, bars, restaurants, cafes, clubs etc.

I have attached the video results for you. Apologies for the quality – I do have the video in HD if you prefer, although the file size is rather large and difficult to email. I am emailing all of the locations individually in this way.

We have not yet publicly released the videos as we did last week in order to avoid trolls and bloggers, nor have the videos been forwarded to the city licencing officers, Measurements Canada or any other authority.

I am aiming to post the results of these tests and the resulting conversation in the next few weeks, for reasons of transparency please could all official communications be confined to email so that they can be uploaded to the web.

We’re not trying to cause trouble, we just want to help drinkers get the serving they ordered and your support of this does you and your team credit.

All the best and hope to see you again soon.

Cheers

Adam July 16 2014

Thank you for your email Adam and for helping us be more informed regarding our beer pour sizes.

We have changed our happy hour signage and our menu to reflect the pour size we are currently serving at 18oz. The last piece is our website which hopefully our website developer will have updated by early next week.

I appreciate your candour and your approach to what is a noble and difficult undertaking.

I look forward to having you come back and remeasure us versus our currently listed pour sizes. I also look forward to following CAMRA as you visit restaurants, bars and breweries throughout the city so we can all be on the same page.

Kind Regards,

60 West Cordova St. Gastown

www.tucrestaurant.com

Thank you Tuc that is fantastic!

I’m so pleased we had a chance to meet and collaborate – also that you were able to make these changes so quickly.

At the moment I am working out the best way to present these tests so that as many people as possible know that establishments walk the walk. I will let you know when we go public with it.

My congratulations to you and your team, keep up the good work! You are now CAMRA BC – #FUSS approved.

I look forward to seeing you again.

Cheers

Adam

Next up the Lamplighter:

Hi Lamplighter,

I wasn’t sure of your email address (how do I not have your card?!) so I hope this makes it to you. I wasn’t sure if I should include <other> in this email or not, but I figure you’ll pass it on if you think <other> needs to read it (I don’t have his email either it seems).

As you might know CAMRA BC as consumer advocates have a campaign called #FUSS, which for the last 2.5 years has been encouraging businesses that serve draft beer to comply with government regulation to:

Post serving sizes clearly.
Deliver that serving size within +/- 0.5 imperial oz.
Serve 20 imperial oz. of beer if a “pint” is posted.

Again, these are legal requirements not CAMRA BC’s rules.

I have attached the video results for you from our test at the Lamplighter. Apologies for the quality – I do have the video in HD if you prefer, although the file size is rather large and difficult to email. I am emailing all of the locations individually in this way.

There weren’t any serving sizes on the menu, nor on the blackboard. The server, when asked, said it was a “17oz pint” which is not technically possible (pints are 20 imperial oz). The actual serving size when measured came out at slightly above 14oz, at least 2oz short of the amount promised.

The glasses might hold about 16oz of beer if filled to the brim, however this is not the poured serving size and according to Measurement Canada head size is not to be included in liquid volume.

I am writing to you so that we can start a dialogue and hopefully find a solution.

Naturally the easiest solution would be to post the accurate (14oz) serving volumes on the menu and/or blackboard, this would fulfil the legal requirement and therefore #FUSS.

I really hope that you are able to make this simple change, Stateside Craft has already made a change less than a week after we contacted them We recently retested them, they were spot-on and so we gave them some love on social media for basically complying with the law.

Alternatively you could fill the glasses closer to the brim, a serving of no less than 15.5oz is within the +/- 0.5oz allowable error range I believe. However you would still have to post the serving volumes to comply with the liquor code.

You could also switch to the bigger glasses that many of your pubs use, this will allow room for both head and the appropriate serving. But, again you would still have to post the serving volumes.

We’re not trying to cause trouble, we just want to help drinkers get the serving they ordered.

Also – we are going back out soon to do more areas, Main Street, Granville Mall, Kits etc. which will probably include more Donnelly locations after all you’re all over the city. So it would be great if they also complied before we test them.

Thanks for your time.

Cheers

Adam July 17 2014

Adam! I eventually received your email with the video, but now you have my email. It’s weird you don’t have it, <other> is down in N.O. at his version of Disneyland (Tales of the Cocktail) for the next week but I sent it down to him as well.As you know, we’re all about FUSS and I like to think we’re pretty good at it, we have a HUGE Euro following as you know and serving sizes are always front of mind, lol.

As for your poured video, you actually are pouring a “Sleeve” in the shot. We only serve proper pints in a few Euro branded styles a majority of the time – Guinness, etc. – A reporter from the Sun was at the Square recently and we poured him perfect Guinness pint under his testing methods. Further to this we have had multiple conversations with our beer providers to follow up with the liquor board to ensure their glassware can legally be called pints when filled to the 50cl pour line.

I think there are only 4 “pint” styles per pub actually, all the rest are poured in sleeves which I believe are 15oz stemmed glassware poured to 13 – 14 ounces with head (TK can confirm this, so please don’t refer to me as the final authority here). You may have been told a “pint” by the bartender, but I can assure you you paid for a sleeve. He may have been slightly confused but you certainly weren’t charged more. I’ll definitely have a chat with the staff down there as we’re continually hearing “Pints” referred to as any beer by customers and staff alike, it seems that it has more of a colloquial meaning to it here amongst most people. Less about volume and more about the “act of drinking a beer”. I catch myself doing it from time to time as well.

Overall, I think there was some confusion over nomenclature in your case at The Lamp, but we’ll be sure to reprimand the guilty parties asap. We haven’t deviated from what we originally started when Paddy Treavor and <other> went over the FUSS details when it was first launched. As far as I know, <other> is reprinting all menus reflecting the liquid without head included in that number upon his return to Vancouver – our creative team has already begun the process, but as you know this things are quite expensive and take a bit of time. Once again, <other> can speak more to it upon his return.

Let me know if there is anything I haven’t addressed,

Thanks!

Hi Lamplighter, so sorry for the delay, the pitcher pricing thing blew up and well… summer!

It really is great working with you guys, you totally get what we’re trying to do and you’re already way ahead of us! You’ve been awesome with CAMRA BC I’m glad we can work this stuff out.

I know people can be pretty casual with the word “pint” and I think that’s us in the UK to blame – we always talk about going for “pints” heck even your podcast does (I think you get a FUSS pass for that though), but that’s because the law there mandates that you can only buy beer in pints (or halves) and that must be 568ml. Here’s become just a buzzword but the easiest way to think about it is that it’s a legally defined amount, just like litre or ounce. That’s easy to fix and I’m sure by now you and <other> have cascaded a reminder to all the server staff at all your locations.

I’m interested in your conversation with the liquor board about 500ml servings as a pint – how did that go?

However, even ignoring the “pint” discussion it was still way under the volume described by the server – again you’re making sure this is gets fixed so that’s no problem either, the easiest way is to print the serving volumes on a menu or blackboard the way that lots of places are now doing with ABV and even IBUs. I know you’re all over that too! As consumer advocates all we really want to see is accurate information so that the public can make an informed decision.

I’m sure there’s no need to reprimand anyone, clearly just an honest mistake. If I may take a moment and pass on some constructive criticism that has come my way – people are loving the craft focus in the Donnelly pubs, honestly I think you’re doing a great job too. The problem is that many of the servers don’t really have any real understanding of the tap list or the styles. For example during VCBW I went around most of the places (not all) on my New Belgium crawl many servers had even heard about it and knew nothing about the beer or the project, then just the other week a member contacted me saying that he did the Sierra Nevada tour and had to show the map to the server to make any sense – and this isn’t isolated to one or 2 locations. Please accept this as honest feedback, it would be a shame for craft to falter in the Donnelly group because of that disconnect.

However I propose a solution! As you know CAMRA BC has an educational mandate and we’re looking to roll that out to our friends in the industry, so we’re offering free onsite classes to bars, restaurants and liquor stores. They are meant to be very flexible, any time that works, talking about the beers in stock, what the styles are, pairings, Q&A, glassware, casks, whatever you like. Let’s get those servers excited and knowledgeable about craft beer! We’ve not announced the program yet (see above for crazy busy) and we’d love to do a few trials to make sure. The only catch is that all the attendees become CAMRA BC members – which is only $20-$25 per head and they get all the benefits of membership! I’ve attached some information – please don’t spread it around too much as we’re still working out the details but if you’re interested then let’s talk.

Glad we could work it all out.

Hope to see you for a beer soon!

Cheers

Adam

Next up: Funky Winkerbean’s Pub

Hi Funkys,

Lovely to meet and talk with you on Saturday (we were the guys measuring your beers), here is the email I promised you.

Post serving sizes clearly.
Deliver that serving size within +/- 0.5 imperial oz.
Serve 20 imperial oz. of beer if a “pint” is posted.

Again, these are legal requirements not CAMRA BC’s rules.

As you know we video’d pouring a pint into our cup and it fell a few ounces short of the 20oz mark, ending up around the 18oz mark.

The glasses would hold about 20oz of beer if filled to the brim, however this is not the poured serving size and according to Measurement Canada head size is not to be included in liquid volume.

I am writing to you so that we can start a dialogue and hopefully find a solution. I have 4 suggestions which would comply with the regulations:

1. Buy new glassware that will deliver the posted serving size – Stateside Craft has already done this less than a week after we contacted them, we recently retested them and they were spot-on.

2. Altering the menu so that references to pint are replaced with “18oz” this can be done when the beer menus are next printed to minimise costs. (another location in Gastown have already taken down their “pint” notices)

3. Fill the glasses closer to the brim, a serving of no less than 19.5oz is within the +/- 0.5oz allowable error range.

We’re not trying to cause trouble, we just want to help drinkers get the serving they ordered.

All the best and keep funky‘s #punkasfuck

Cheers

Adam 16th July 2014

No Reply.

Hi Funkys,

Attached is the email sent you a few weeks ago. I’ve not received a response from you yet (if you’ve sent one could you resend it please?) and I wanted to let you know that we will be releasing the video and the accompanying dialogue on our website in the next day or two.

I look forward to receiving an email from you soon.

Cheers

Adam August 5 2014

Next up at long last: The Alibi Room

Dear Alibi Room,

As you may know we did some #FUSS testing in Gastown recently and of all the places we went and measured you guys were the only ones who totally nailed the serving size posted in the menu.

Congratulations to you all and here’s your prize:

Your contribution to the craft beer community of Vancouver is, in my view, unparalleled, thanks to your whole team and keep up the great work!

Cheers

Adam

#FUSS Tour of Gastown Part 2

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