Certified cicerone sniffs, swirls and sips breweries’ best

Sit down over a beer with Russell Gardner and you will never look at beer the same way again.

First, he makes you swirl it around in the glass -- a dainty, tulip-shaped one for this draught -- then stick your nose in there to get a good whiff of its bouquet. You know, like wine.

You can pick up hints of hay, horse blanket, even some goat and grass, he says of a Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere. It's a sour beer, aptly named for the pucker effect it has on your mouth.

Is this making you thirsty? Maybe not.

Gardner, 29, swirls the golden liquid in his glass once more before instructing his beer pupils: "Then you sip."

This short tasting session is a surprisingly sublime experience and, even if you don't like the beer, you come away with a new appreciation for the complexities of one of the most common alcoholic beverages in the world.

Who knew a beer that smelled like goat would actually taste good?

Gardner is a certified beer cicerone and the manager of the beer program for Public House at The Venetian. The restaurant and pub opened last year, boasting a beer menu with more than 200 selections. It's a mighty list. Gardner has not only tasted each one and then some, he can tell you vivid descriptions of what each smells and tastes like.

Based on the beer you like, he can give you a list of others that you will love but have probably never even heard of.

And if you don't like beer? Well, you just haven't found the right one. That's where Gardner comes in.

"It's pretty much like a sommelier for wine," he says of his cicerone certification, awarded to him last year by the national program that is a service of the Chicago-based Craft Beer Institute.

To pass the certification test, candidates must have vast knowledge in several areas, including how to: store beer, sell it, pair it with food and brew it. They also have to know what it tastes like on a scale the average beer-drinker couldn't imagine.

Las Vegas has lagged behind other major cities in its beer knowledge, appreciation and availability, say local beverage experts. But that is changing.

In recent years, several restaurants and bars, including Holsteins at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas and Chateau Terrace at Paris Las Vegas, have opened on the Strip, each highlighting beer. We're not talking Bud Light or PBR, either.

"Beer has really taken off the last couple years," says Cory Harwell, general manager of the Pub at Monte Carlo. "Beer is the new wine. It's the new craze."

Beer culture has been slow to develop in Las Vegas because of distribution issues. It's hard to get a wide variety of East Coast beers in the west because it's cost-prohibitive to ship them this far, says Hugo Moreno, general manager of Public House. But more West Coast brews made it possible to build a varied beer menu.

"Las Vegas is just not a beer town," Moreno says. "I unfortunately don't see the town excited about beer. We want to hopefully turn people on to beer. I think it's such an interesting, multifaceted beverage. Beer is truly unique, more so than wine or spirits."

If anyone could begin to change the perception of beer, at least on the Strip, it is Gardner.

Born and raised in Las Vegas, the single father of a 12-year-old daughter looks like Paul Rudd with a magnificent mustache. He grew it a few years ago and keeps it as a tribute to his grandfather, who wore a similar style. It's thick over the lip and tapers into a thin curl, held firm with wax.

It takes a unique and confident man to stand behind that kind of facial hair. When Moreno met Gardner about a year ago, the mustache threw him off.

Forty seconds into the interview, Moreno says he knew, this guy knows his stuff. And the stuff of a few other people, too.

"For me, beer is more of a hobby," says Moreno, who has a solid beverage background. "For Russ, it's a lifestyle."

About seven years ago, a friend of Gardner's started home-brewing. He became fascinated by it and quickly set out to learn everything he could about beer.

Gardner aimed to one day open his own brewery, which he was able to do recently. It's called Backyard Brewing Co., and he brews Workday Wit, Rocking Chair Red and Back Patio Brown, among others.

At 16, Gardner got his first restaurant job as a host at Denny's. Since then, Gardner has worked in several restaurants in town.

He studied commercial photography in college.

But his true niche is in beer.

"Part of my job is opening people's eyes to the world of beer," he says.

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@review journal.com or 702-380-4564. Follow @StripSonya on Twitter.