Working in a brewery as a student
We had an ale with a tasteful gold wrapper around the crown. The wrappers arrived in long lines that were stacked half-inside one another, like coffee filters. Four guys would stand on either side of the line, and as the bottles went past, we'd pluck a wrapper from the end of the stack and drop it on a bottle - any bottle. Pluck drop pluck drop pluck drop. For eight hours.

On the midnight shift we would clean the gunk out of the soaking machines, that removed the labels from returned bottles (tipped out the roaches and ciggy ends as well). We got to do this dressed in rubber suits while brandishing fire hoses. We were uniformly pissed within an hour of arriving at work. What could go wrong? I can still see guys propelled across the building with a judicious blast from a fire hose, then getting their revenge.

Fork lift drivers would get bombed, then take corners too quickly with 20 foot loads of fresh beer cases on the front.

We'd drink about 18 beers during a shift (straight off the filler and before it hit the pasteuriser - draft beer in the bottle!), grab a burger after the shift, then go out drinking in the evening.

Oh, we're talking about Canadian beer here, not that American horse-piss.

The strange part is that we had any production at all.
(Just a stub, Fri 1 Oct 2004, 21:21, Reply)