BBC Managers Hear “London Calling” and Answer with Gusto!

Fuller’s Hosts BBC Managers for Training, Tasting and Touring –
BBCers are First Americans to Receive Fuller’s Cellar Management Certification

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The British Beer Company recently sent eight of its employees to London on an excursion designed to give the BBC pub managers a true taste of pub life in Great Britain.  The trip, generously hosted by Fuller, Smith and Turner, PLC of Chiswick, England, and brewers of Fuller’s London Pride, Fuller’s ESB and Fuller’s London Porter, was another step in the BBC’s effort to build cultural bridges with the driving forces of pub culture in Europe. 

Among the more notable aspects of the trip is the fact that the BBC’s managers were the first ever group of American publicans to receive the training necessary to achieve certification in Fuller’s Cellar Management training for the care, handling, presentation, food pairing and history of cask ale and keg beer, from a UK perspective.

“The BBC has been committed to unique employee training programs through cultural exchange since our earliest days.  In this, our tenth anniversary year, we’ve upped the level of exchange in order to really give our staff the critical cultural immersion in British pub life that enables them to truly differentiate their own establishments back here in Massachusetts,” said Gary Simon, managing partner of the BBC.

In addition to their training at the Fuller’s brewery in the Chiswick section of London, the BBCers, who represented every pub in the BBC “Empire”, spent time touring the sites of London on foot, on water and by bus, tube and taxi. Given that this was a first-time experience for many of them, the tour included everything from Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London to the late night flash of Soho and the traditional pub at Churchill Arms (as fine an example of a top flight pub and pub manager as any).  Every pub manager is eager to convey what the saw, felt and learned during the trio to their pub staff and to their customers.

We can’t thank the good people at Fuller, Smith and Turner for their fabulous commitment to hosting our people in the UK and to their incredible planning and effort in allowing the BBC managers to steep themselves in the richness and variety of pub life in England.  The photographic evidence here is proof of the success of the trip!