How to drink on the job, when drinking IS your job.

*Originally written by Emily Palmer who quit

My job is to sell craft beer. Selling craft beer means sharing my love and passion for beer with as many people as I can. It also means I get to drink…a lot. I frequently get told how awesome my job is and how great it would be to get paid to drink craft beer all day. Yes, my job is awesome, yes I get paid and yes I get to drink beer while I work, but drinking beer all day is a slightly misleading description of my job (this should make my bossholes at the brewery happy to know.) Iron Horse Brewery is about crafting flavorful, drinkable, delicious beer. My job is to share this passion with the masses and to do that I get to drink a lot of good beer along the way.

Having said that, there are a few rules I have learned to follow if I want to one; do the best job possible in presenting our beer. Two; keep my job. And three;  speak coherently while working.

The most important rule I have learned is moderation. If you are going to have a beer at lunch, try to stick to one beer and always follow it up with a coffee. A warm sunny day and single beer at lunch can lead to a strong desire for a nap in the park. Drinking multiple beers at lunch will lead to a strong desire to not work at all.

When working an event or in a situation where it is okay to drink a few more beers, try to remember your limit. If you have never been able to drop into the splits on the dance floor, the fourth Double Rainbow you drank is probably not going to change that. And if you decide to attempt the classic jazz split move there might be a video camera recording it. Not that that’s ever happened to me…

At the end of the day, there are a ton of very delicious beers out there to be tasted and only so many hours in a day to do it! My ultimate goal is to share delicious beer with as many people as possible. My grandpa use to always tell me “Beer is for selling, not for drinking!” I believe that it’s for both but it’s important to know when it’s about drinking, when it’s about selling- and when you can do both.