A new 18-tap venue with a strong emphasis on beer service has swung open its doors in Perth.

Petition Beer Corner’s entire bar team have been accredited as Certified Beer Servers under the Cicerone program, the venue’s beer ambassador Andrew Smith told Australian Brews News.

“It’s been really helpful, because in order topass that test, you have to study at least 49 styles of beer,” said Smith.

“For all our staff to have passed that test, there’s very little that would come on tap that would be confusing or foreign to them, which in turn means they’re not going to give a blank stare to a customer who asks some questions.”

Petition is backed by Little Creatures founders Adrian Fini, Howard Cearns, David Martin and Nic Trimboli, together with Fini’s partners at developer FJM Property.

The team brought Smith on board to help establish and market the venue and its philosophy around beer.

“We’re really focused on being well balanced in terms of geographical selection with our beers, and complexity of the beer itself,” said Smith.

He said the 18 taps are intended to be evenly poised between WA, interstate and international or one-off specialty beers, together with a good spread of styles.

“We always want to make sure there’s roughly a third of beers that are extremely approachable.”

The venue uses just two different glasses, a 163ml snifter that can be used either in tasting flights of four 100ml beers or 150ml taster pours of individual beers. There’s also a 518ml snifter for pours of 300ml or 450ml.

“The pricing is flat across the pour sizes to encourage exploration, not to reward heavier drinking,” said Smith.

A menu by chef Jesse Blake includes salt and vinegar chicharrones with pig’s ear and onion crème, buttermilk fried chickenand an organic Margaret River beef cheeseburger served with onion rings.

Petition Beer Corner is located in the heritage State Buildings on the corner of St Georges Terrace and Barrack Street. The development also includes contemporary bistro Petition Kitchen and Petition Wine Bar & Merchant.