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YOUR ORGANIZER, B's BEER SUPPLY SIDE UPBRINGING

Question: What do you know about brewing?

Answer: Quality matters, always! That's what I learned working for Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company in Milwaukee and later in Saudi Arabia as a "clandestine" home brewer.

While I was working at Schlitz, beer quality gradually declined as they strove to become the most profitable brewer in America. Joseph Schlitz sped up brewing with ABF—accelerated batch fermentation—and began cutting corners on ingredients and the containers. What was once America's most popular beer has now all but disappeared.

I had the opposite experience as a home brewer. Superior quality (and that's relative to other 5-gallon batch home brewers) created an unanticipated problem. But first, a little context: not only was all alcohol forbidden in Saudi Arabia, if reported, I risked deportation or worse. Picture this: a new batch or two of hand bottled beer chilled on a weekend evening with another expat friend or two sharing a drink. This was before cell phones and, of course, microbreweries. All too often others—from our small close-knit expatriate community—would unannounced, drop by my house. God knows that I didn't broadcast... free beer, here. Beer that should have lasted a month, was lucky to make it through a Thursday night (think, our Saturday on a weekend) with any left in the frig. After more than a year of fastidious, quality home brewing, I reluctantly gave it up. Better beer proved way too much work...and far too risky.