I worked at Dans for two years. Employee expertise varies from store to store, it all has to do with the store managers.
The store I worked at we had staff beer tastings every week and a few of us were pretty good in the beer department. We had a beer panel and ****, customers always seemed happy with our recommendations.
Most Dans stores however, are massively wine biased. Every store has a fine wine expert, something I thought would be good with beer. I suggested that dans stores should all have a beer expert but obviously it didn't happen.
I lived in Brisbane when I worked there, our store was good with stuff like that. Now that I have moved back to Coffs Harbour, the Dans experience here is crap. I haven't met a single employee yet that has known anything about beer. They cant even tell me where to find a beer I know they have.
anyway, bottom line. Some dans stores are great, but most are not. If they have a passionate store manager that wants to further the knowledge of employees thats great. I sadly think that most store managers dont care about anything but budgets and sales.
Also want to add that I no longer work or have anything to do with Dan Murphys. Im a refrigeration mechanic, the two years I worked there was just for something different for a bit.