Beer, Wine and Beverage Service

Course Description

Beer, Wine and Beverage Service is a course in which classroom activity, discussion and lab will focus on service of beer, wine and non-alcoholic beverages common to the hospitality industry. Students learn and practise proper procedures for selection, pricing and service.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, HFT is the Hospitality Management prefix. Daytona State publishes this at 3 credits, offered spring, giving approximately 45 contact hours at the prefix convention.

Beverage is where hospitality margins live. Food operations run on thin margins and high labour; beverage carries markedly better gross margin, which is why beverage knowledge is disproportionately valuable to anyone intending to manage rather than only to serve. The three strands here — selection, pricing, and service — are the manager's three levers, and the course treats them together for that reason.

Daytona State does not publish a lecture and laboratory split for its HFT courses, but the convention across the prefix is consistent: every unsuffixed HFT course published at this institution runs at 3 credits and approximately 45 contact hours — 15 hours per credit, confirmed across twelve live courses without exception. The prefix's two C-suffixed courses (HFT2750C and HFT2867C) run at 20 hours per credit, which is what the suffix signals.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Describe the principal categories of beverages served in hospitality operations.
• Describe beer styles, their characteristics, and their production in outline.
• Describe the principal wine varietals and wine-producing regions.
• Describe wine production and how it shapes the finished product.
• Apply appropriate sensory vocabulary to describe beer and wine.
• Recommend beverages appropriate to a guest's stated preferences.
• Describe principles of food and beverage pairing.
• Describe non-alcoholic beverage categories, including coffee, tea, and mixers.
• Prepare and serve coffee and tea to standard.
• Describe correct storage conditions for beer, wine, and spirits.
• Describe correct service temperatures and glassware for each beverage.
• Perform correct wine service, including presentation, opening, and pouring.
• Perform correct beer service, including draught pouring and head control.
• Describe draught system components and routine line maintenance.
• Apply portion control and standard pour practice.
• Calculate pour cost and beverage cost percentage.
• Price beverages to achieve a target margin.
• Construct a beverage list appropriate to an operation and its market.
• Describe inventory, par levels, and ordering for a beverage operation.
• Apply responsible service practice and recognise signs of intoxication.
• Check identification correctly and refuse service appropriately.
• Describe Florida legal requirements applying to beverage service.
• Apply sanitation and safety practice in beverage service.
• Deliver beverage service courteously and efficiently under pressure.

Optional Outcomes

• Describe spirits categories and their production.
• Describe cocktail construction and classic recipes.
• Describe wine list design and cellar management.
• Describe beverage marketing and promotion.
• Conduct a structured tasting and record findings.
• Prepare for an industry beverage certification.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Beverage categories
• Beer styles and production
• Wine varietals and regions
• Wine production
• Sensory vocabulary
• Guest recommendation
• Food and beverage pairing
• Non-alcoholic beverages
• Coffee and tea service
• Storage conditions
• Service temperature and glassware
• Wine service technique
• Beer and draught service
• Draught systems and line maintenance
• Portion control and standard pours
• Pour cost calculation
• Beverage pricing
• Beverage list construction
• Inventory and par levels
• Responsible service and intoxication signs
• Identification checking and refusal
• Florida legal requirements
• Sanitation and safety
• Service delivery under pressure

Optional Topics

• Spirits categories and production
• Cocktail construction
• Wine list design and cellar management
• Beverage marketing
• Structured tasting
• Industry certification preparation

Resources & Tools

• Brewers Association (brewersassociation.org) — the craft brewing trade body; substantial free technical, safety, and quality resources, including its safety guidance.
• Master Brewers Association of the Americas (mbaa.com) — technical training and its podcast, which is genuinely useful and free.
• American Society of Brewing Chemists (asbcnet.org) — the analytical methods standard.
• Designing Great Beers (Daniels), Yeast (White & Zainasheff), and Water (Palmer & Kaminski) — the technical series brewers actually keep.
• The Oxford Companion to Beer — the reference for styles and history.
• Cicerone Certification Program (cicerone.org) — the beer-service credential; the entry level is inexpensive and directly marketable.
• TTB (ttb.gov) — free federal permit, labelling, and excise tax guidance; the authority for anything in this guide about federal licensing.
• Florida DBPR / Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco — free; Florida licensing and the responsible vendor programme.
• Local breweries. Florida's craft scene is large and brewers are unusually willing to talk — ask to tour, ask to help on a brew day, and take the shift work if it is offered.
• American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute (ahlei.org) — industry certifications recognised by employers.
• National Restaurant Association — ServSafe (servsafe.com) — food safety and alcohol certifications; the alcohol certification is the one hiring managers ask about.
• Florida DBPR (myfloridalicense.com) — free; the authority on Florida beverage and food service licensing, and where to verify anything in this guide.
• Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association (frla.org) — state industry body, training, and a job board.
• VISIT FLORIDA (visitflorida.org) and its research pages — free visitor volume and tourism data, useful for any coursework requiring market analysis.
• Hospitality Management and Supervision in the Hospitality Industry (AHLEI texts) — the standard course references.
• Work in the industry while you study. The single most valuable thing in this field — employers weigh floor experience heavily and it costs you nothing but the shifts.

Career Pathways

• Food service manager — SOC 11-9051.
• Lodging manager — SOC 11-9081.
• First-line supervisor of food preparation and serving workers — SOC 35-1012.
• Meeting, convention, and event planner — SOC 13-1121.
• Bartender — SOC 35-3011; waiters and waitresses — SOC 35-3031.
• Theme parks and attractions — a distinctively Central Florida employer at very large scale.
• Resorts and hotels — coastal Florida and Orlando in particular.
• Cruise lines — Florida is the largest cruise embarkation market in the world.
• Convention and conference services — Orlando and Miami are major convention destinations.
• Restaurants, bars, and breweries — including a large and growing Florida craft brewing sector.
• Clubs, golf, and private membership operations.
• Casino and gaming operations — see the note on Florida gaming regulation.
• Transfer to a bachelor's — Daytona State offers upper-division hospitality courses (HFT3373, HFT3700, HFT4064, HFT4253, HFT4277, HFT4809); ⚠ confirm which lower-division courses apply.

Special Information

⚠ Pour cost is the number that gets managers promoted

• Beverage profitability is controlled almost entirely by portioning and by shrinkage, and both are measurable. A manager who can explain a two-point movement in pour cost is doing the job; one who cannot is a supervisor.
• Free-pouring is inconsistent and expensive. A quarter-ounce over on every drink is a substantial annual loss, and it is invisible without measurement.
• Learn the calculation properly — cost of beverage sold divided by beverage sales — and learn what a normal range looks like for beer, wine, and spirits, since they differ markedly and a blended figure hides problems.
• Shrinkage has ordinary causes before it has dishonest ones — over-pouring, spillage, breakage, unrecorded comps, and returns. Investigate in that order.
• Inventory discipline is what makes any of it visible. Counted consistently, on schedule, by the same method.
• Price for the market as well as the margin. A theoretically correct price nobody pays is not a price.
• Draught yield is a real and frequently ignored loss — foam, line cleaning, and temperature all consume product that was paid for.

⚠⚠ Florida alcohol law — the part that creates personal and employer liability

• Alcoholic beverages are regulated in Florida under Chapter 561–565, Florida Statutes, administered by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (ABT).
• ⚠⚠ Florida sets minimum ages for selling, serving, and handling alcoholic beverages that are separate from the 21 drinking age, and they differ by role and by setting. A student may be old enough to serve and not old enough to consume — which has direct consequences for tasting components of beverage and brewing courses. Verify with the programme and with ABT before assuming what you may do.
• ⚠⚠ Florida's server liability rule is narrower than most states' dram shop laws and it is easy to get wrong. Under § 768.125, Florida Statutes, a seller is generally not liable for injury caused by an intoxicated adult patron — but liability does attach for serving a person not of lawful drinking age, and for knowingly serving a person habitually addicted to alcohol. Those two exceptions are where the exposure sits.
• Checking identification is therefore the single most consequential thing a server does. Know acceptable forms, know how to spot alteration, and refuse when uncertain — the refusal costs a sale; the alternative costs a licence and can end a career.
• Florida operates a Responsible Vendor programme (§ 561.705) under which licensees that train their staff to the required standard gain protection against certain penalties. Employers value the certification, and it is inexpensive to hold.
• Over-service is a refusal skill, not a judgement call. Learn the signs of intoxication, learn to cut off gracefully, and know your establishment's policy and who backs you up.
• The licence belongs to the establishment and violations threaten it — which is why employers treat these rules far more seriously than new staff expect.
• ⚠ Rule 11 applies. Beverage law changes, local ordinances add requirements, and penalties are revised. Verify current requirements with DBPR/ABT and your employer rather than relying on any course guide.

⚠ The description mentions a laboratory but the course number does not

• Daytona State describes laboratory or production activity in this course, yet publishes it as an unsuffixed three-credit course rather than a C-suffixed combined course.
• Under SCNS Rule 22 the suffix is part of the course number, so the absence of a C is not cosmetic — it means the practical work is delivered inside the standard credit and contact hours rather than as an additional laboratory component.
• This matters for transfer. If a receiving institution carries the same subject as a C-suffixed course, that is a different SCNS number and equivalency does not automatically cross the suffix.
• It also matters for expectations. Practical sessions are part of the scheduled hours here, so the balance of classroom to hands-on time is set by the instructor rather than by a separately timetabled lab.
• Ask the receiving institution in writing before assuming this course satisfies a suffixed requirement elsewhere.

⚠⚠ Food and beverage safety — the failures that close establishments

• Foodborne illness outbreaks close businesses and end careers, and in beverage operations the hazards are less obvious than in a kitchen, which is precisely why they are missed.
• Florida food service establishments are regulated by DBPR's Division of Hotels and Restaurants, with certified food manager and trained food handler requirements. ⚠ Verify current certification requirements — they are set by rule and they change.
• Ice is a food. Ice machines are among the most frequently cited and most commonly neglected pieces of equipment in a bar, and scooping ice with a glass is both a contamination and a broken-glass hazard.
• Soda and beer lines require scheduled cleaning, and neglected draught lines are a genuine microbiological problem as well as a quality one.
• Garnishes are ready-to-eat food handled with bare hands more often than anything else behind a bar — the same rules apply as in a kitchen.
• Keep chemicals away from product, always, and never store a cleaning solution in an unlabelled container. Chemical contamination of a beverage is a serious and entirely preventable event.
• Know the safety data sheets for every chemical you use, and the required personal protective equipment.
• Wash hands properly and frequently, and stay home when ill — reporting illness is a requirement, not a courtesy.
• Glass, wet floors, and knives cause most bar injuries. Never handle broken glass by hand, and never put glassware in an ice well.

⚠ What hospitality work actually pays and demands in Florida

• Florida is one of the largest hospitality labour markets in the country — theme parks, cruise lines, resorts, convention business, and a very large restaurant and bar sector. Employment is genuinely plentiful here in a way it is not everywhere.
• ⚠ Florida's minimum wage has been rising annually under a state constitutional amendment, and the tipped cash wage is the minimum less a tip credit, with the employer required to make up any shortfall. Verify the current figures — they change on a set annual schedule and they materially affect what a tipped role pays.
• Hours are evenings, weekends, and holidays. This is the defining lifestyle fact of the industry and the most common reason people leave it.
• Seasonality is pronounced in Florida — spring break, race weeks, holiday periods, and hurricane season all move demand sharply, and hours move with it.
• Advancement is genuinely fast for reliable people. The industry promotes from within more readily than most, and supervisory roles come early to those who show up and can be depended on.
• The work is physical — long hours on your feet, heat, lifting, and sustained pace.
• Turnover is high, which cuts both ways: it means openings everywhere, and it means employers place real value on anyone who stays.
• Certifications are cheap and they differentiate you — food safety management, responsible vendor training, and a first-aid card cost little and are noticed at hiring.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement. That boundary is live in this prefix: Daytona State offers both an associate-level hospitality programme and an upper-division bachelor's sequence (HFT3373, HFT3700, HFT4064, HFT4253, HFT4277, HFT4809), and a 2000-level course does not substitute for its 4000-level counterpart even where the subject looks identical.

HFT1021 is 3 credits and approximately 45 contact hours, offered spring at Daytona State.

⚠ Florida law sets minimum ages for serving and for consuming alcoholic beverages, and they are not the same. Confirm with the programme what a student under 21 may and may not do in the practical components. See this repository's HFT1860, HFT2867C, and HFT4064 guides for the rest of the beverage sequence.