Could it be an occupational disability? Perhaps it is, but some
times I can get quite worked up about a barkeeper who doesn't
present a superb product like Heineken to the customer in
exactly the right way. Heineken is top quality and the customer
who asks for it deserves to be served it in style.
What almost literally hurts my eyes is a greasy glass; the source of
every poorly presented glass of Heineken. Fat and grease from,
say, lipstick, peanuts, olives and bar food will kill off a splendid
head of foam. I always tell barkeepers how enormously important
it is to use clean, fat-free glasses. But how do you do that? Simple:
you rinse the glass in lukewarm water to which you've added a
small scoop of soda. Then you rinse it off in cold water and leave
it to dry naturally. On no account should you use a cloth, as that
will soon get fatty as well. Do you want to use a ready-made rinse
aid? If so, make sure that the product you choose is non-
perfumed, as otherwise the glass of beer you serve might have a
slight fragrance of rose petals. Some barkeepers use a small, high
speed dishwasher. I would advise them to use that machine for
glasses only. Not for plates on which there might still be some
food remnants. And here again, the rule is: do not use a product
that contains a fragrance.
In some countries the barkeeper fetches a glass out of the deep-
freezer. From a professional point of view I don't have many
problems with that, as long as the glass that he put in the freezer
in the first place was perfectly clean and fat-free. But there is
another small potential drawback to using frozen glasses: some
times the ice-cold glass may just make the ice-cold beer that bit
too chilly, so that the beer freezes or looks as if it has gone flat.
The head of foam will disappear, as will my desire to drink that
beer.
