Brewer must pay beer taster

A Brazilian court has ordered local brewer Ambev to pay 100,000 reals ($49,400 US) to an alcoholic beer-taster who drank about three pints a day. The taster said that Ambev did not provide the health measures needed to prevent alcoholism, a labour court in Rio Grande do Sul said in a statement.

The employee said that for more than a decade, he drank 16 to 25 small glasses of beer during eight-hour shifts, with a further bottle given after each shift. Ambev alleged the employee was an alcoholic before becoming a taster, but the judge said that an alcoholic should not have been given the job.

Which came first the chicken [worker who drinks beer everyday] or the egg [alcoholic who is now a worker]? Or is one the creation of the other? In either case, it seems that brewers who have tasters on staff, they will all have to take a hard look at their own hiring and continuous monitoring processes.