Simplifying bartender training, Hospitality USA's first roster of beer cocktails are 50-50, two-beer mixes, with the exception of the Snakebite, which includes hard cider.

First quarter beer sales at the traditional British pubs are 12 percent higher than the same period in 2007, with beer cocktails representing 7 percent of beer sales.

All are priced at $4.75 a pint and blend stout with a variety of ales, lagers, light or wheat beers, or cider. Best sellers include the classic Black & Tan, stout with ale; the Half & Half, stout with lager; and the Snakebite, stout with pear cider. Other popular options include the Irishman in Texas, stout with a Texas-brewed bock beer; and the Black and Blue, stout with wheat beer.

Among the 11 beer cocktails at Hospitality USA pubs, best sellers include Black & Tan, stout with ale; the Half & Half, stout with lager; and the Snakebite, stout with pear cider.

Tested for three months in two Houston locations last summer, the cocktails did well enough to prompt a full rollout at the end of 2007.

“We see the cocktails as a unique way our guests can enjoy beer. And at a time when so many operations are seeing beer sales drop off, we're proud of the fact that our beer sales have held steady and even increased,” says Edgar Carlson, who bought the original Sherlock's in 1995 and is now co-owner of parent Hospitality USA. Seventy percent of the company's total sales are alcoholic beverages (52 percent, beer; 48 percent, spirits), while food and nonalcoholic beverages make up 30 percent.

Hospitality USA's timing is right, says Stephen Beaumont, an internationally known Toronto-based beer consultant. “There's definitely been a rise in interest in beer cocktails, although it's still very much on the fringe at this point,” he says.

But Beaumont, who is teaching a seminar on how to craft beer cocktails at this month's Tales of the Cocktail, an annual five-day culinary and cocktail festival and conference in New Orleans, says there's much more to beer cocktails than topping a random beer with stout. According to Beaumont, centuries-old beer-cocktail traditions include mixing beer with a wide variety of ingredients from raw eggs (a beer flip, which dates back to Colonial times) to spices (mulled wassail from the Middle Ages) to spirits (a boilermaker or submarino).

Guests to Hospitality USA's pub concepts like the beer cocktails, which now represent 7 percent of beer sales and have helped boost total beer sales 12 percent for first quarter 2008.

The best beer cocktails are carefully balanced to achieve flavor harmonies and to respect the integrity of the beers involved, Beaumont says. One of his favorites, for example, is a martini-style beer cocktail made with peaty malt whisky, stout and bitters served in a chilled martini glass and garnished with an orange twist.

Hospitality USA looks at its first beer cocktail roster as a work in progress. For the development of the beer cocktails, the company went with pretty straightforward 50-50 combinations of two beers in the glass to keep things simple for the bartenders. But it is in the process of hiring its first-ever beverage director, who will apply mixology skills to create a wider range of beer cocktails.

“We'll be testing more beers, some blended with juices and other nonalcoholic mixers,” says Carlson. For the time being, the company is steering away from beer cocktails made with additional spirits.

As it rolls out additional beer cocktails, the company will serve them in a variety of glasses and will garnish drinks when fruit or vegetable juices are used in the mix. It will also develop drinks with regional tastes in mind, especially as the chain expands into new markets in the next couple of years: Atlanta, Florida and the Carolinas.

Helping to promote the beer cocktails, the freestanding beverage menus are displayed on tables at all times, augmented by table tents. Hospitality USA also plans a fourth quarter limited-time offer, pairing appetizers with a tasting flight of beer cocktails.

“Before adding the new cocktail menu, we offered beer cocktails, but people were much less likely to know about them or to order them,” says Carlson. “Adding the full page of beer cocktails on the menu really reintroduced something fun for our guests and bolstered our beer sales. We've observed some people working their way through the list.”