BeerBorg

First of all, assuming you all even remember me at all, I owe you all my sincerest apologies. I basically fell off the face of the earth for the last year. I love being a part of this community, and I have just been a horrible Borg member lately. Lots of life changes have gotten in the way of doing more enjoyable things, like homebrewing and hanging out on the Borg. Lame, I know.

Anyway, I hope you have all been doing well, and I look forward to catching up with y'all! That is, if you don't disown me for what I'm about to tell you next.... I really debated coming back here to post an update, because I wasn't sure it would be well-received. But here goes....

You may or may not recall that my day job for the last 15 years has been as an engineer with Caterpillar Inc. If any of you are familiar with what's going on in the mining industry these days, you'll know that's not a good industry to be in. Cat laid off a ton of people late last year, as well as offering early retirement buyouts to tons more people. While I was spared, our numbers were reduced drastically, and the workload just continued to build as we were each suddenly taking on the work of 3, 4 or more people. With talks of future layoffs still to come, I decided to start looking for other employment as a preemptive measure. My husband and I talked and decided this would be the perfect opportunity to relocate to a bigger city. We both love Milwaukee, so that's where I set my sights when job-hunting.

Maybe you can sense where I'm going with this...

As of this June, I am now an Engineering Project Manager at MillerCoors (gasp!). I make beer... FOR A LIVING!!!!

I know most homebrewers aren't really big fans of BMC, so I can understand if you want to have me tarred and feathered now. But I hope you'll let me stick around, because if it wasn't for homebrewing, and everything I've learned from you guys, I never could've landed this gig. And I'll be honest, it's a pretty good gig.

I certainly don't expect anyone here to hide their distaste for any of the MillerCoors brands. I totally get it. I'll take a Lakefront IPA over a Miller Lite pretty much any day (except after I've run a marathon, then a Lite is pretty much all I can stomach because it's so flavorless... er... I mean, mild). But I know y'all know how hard it is to make a beer like Lite or High Life. And to make it in huge quantities, in multiple breweries with different water sources... and have it all taste the same. No small feat. Even though I don't love all the beers we make, I think what we do and how we do it is pretty cool.

I still plan to brew up some tasty IPAs and stouts at home though, because we just don't make anything to really quench that thirst. Plus they have homebrew competitions at MC and I think I could totally win.

So, is it okay if I still hang out here and learn from you guys, and share things I learn too?

Welcome back and a big congrats on the new job. My dad grew up in Milwaukee and I still have some relatives in West Allis. Although it's been sometime since I've been there, I remember it being a great city.

Evily:

We have no choice but to take you back. All of the women have basically left us, I think JoeChiante scared them off. We haven't seen Brewbirds in a very long time either. It is with great pain that we do take you back, now that you work for a company that manufactures horse urine, er, I mean weak beer... Actually, Blue Moon isn't bad, and Molson has some ok brews.

So, yes, you can come back.

Glad to hear you're still around Evily. Congrats on the new job.
Can you please tell me exactly what you do as a Project Manager?
It's always amazed me that companies can cut, cut, cut then make those that are still around word more for less all the while threatening another job cutting. Sad but that's where we are these days.
Hope you'll come back around lots more!

RickBeer wrote:... now that you work for a company that manufactures horse urine...

Hey, I'll have you know we do not use any actual horse urine in the production of our beers!

But this begs the question... How do you know what horse urine taste like?

Thanks for begrudgingly welcoming me back, Rick. I too enjoy Blue Moon. I also like some of the Leinie's (but I hate Summer Shandy, ugh - I do not understand why so many people love it).

Beer-lord wrote:Glad to hear you're still around Evily. Congrats on the new job.
Can you please tell me exactly what you do as a Project Manager?

Thanks Beer-lord! It's a complicated job that I am still learning about, but in a nutshell: I will be leading improvement projects at the various breweries around the country, specifically in the areas of malting, milling, mashing, lautering, brewing, fermenting and aging. (There is another team that handles projects related to packaging - bottling, kegging, etc., and another team that handles utilities projects - CO2, ammonia, electricity, water, etc)

So, as an example, I am currently shadowing another project manager on a project to design and install a new flash pasteurizer at the Leinenkugel's brewery to improve beer yields and reduce variability on their unfiltered products. It sounds simple in theory, but will involve relocating an entire staircase, opening up an exterior wall, and rerouting thousands of feet of piping in order to just prepare for the installation of the new equipment. Then the equipment has to be installed, validated through actual beer trials, and put into production. A lot of these steps involve shutting the brewery down, which of course affects brewing capacity, so once we get the clearance to shut a brewery down, we have to work VERY quickly. Our team has numerous other projects going ranging from yeast propagation upgrades to setting up breweries to brew beers they've never made before (one of our Coors breweries is gearing up to brew Miller product, and it has been a MAJOR undertaking). We work with both the breweries and outside consulting firms to design, schedule and budget these projects and make sure they happen on time and within budget.

Congrats on the new job. I know people make a lot of digs on the macros, but as you pointed out, it's a lot harder to brew a bland light colored beer than something stronger flavored and darker because there's no room for error. And to make every batch from every location come out the same is a really impressive feat.

I was just in Peoria and Milwaukee (on vacation, believe it it not). Things have certainly changed from when I lived in Peoria and the whole city basically shut down during Cat vacation.

Welcome back! Maybe now your there, you can teach them to put some flavor in that cow piss! Yup, don't ask but I do unfortunately know... LOL. I don't milk cows any-longer.

FrozenInTime wrote:Welcome back! Maybe now your there, you can teach them to put some flavor in that cow piss! Yup, don't ask but I do unfortunately know... LOL. I don't milk cows any-longer.

Do you suppose that means RickBeer knows what horse urine tastes like because he once... milked horses???

Well y'all know me and I'm gonna be brutally honest here. If it wasn't for BMC, I'd had a harder time getting laid in High School and College.
So Thank You for carrying the torch for the sexually challenged younger generation.

Now that that's out of the way.
Congratulations! On everything, the job, the marriage (hell of a guy you have there, sticking by you!) and your own tenacity for seeing your future and going for it!!!!!
In reading your answer to Beer-lords question, I can see that you really enjoy your job and that is all that matters.
BTW? How are the kitties? How did the move go for them?

Love you both and hope to see more of you.

Welcome back and congrats on the new job. Working in the beer industry is cool. I have no doubt that you'll be learning a lot of new things to apply to your homebrews so please do share!

Knowing they manufacture horse urine has nothing to do with knowing what horse urine tastes like, which I never stated...

Welcome back. And CONGRATULATIONS on the new job. You will learn a great deal that will help you in your home brewing and that you can teach us.
As far as the cutbacks, I hadn't thought about mining equipment. The war on coal has cost 10s of thousands of railroad jobs nationwide. I have no idea how many minors have lost their jobs. I guess Cat and Kase are probably casualties too.
I am retired now so I make a lot less money...but I face no risk of getting laid off. Heck of a trade but the free time is nice.

welcome back and congrats!

Inkleg wrote:Well y'all know me and I'm gonna be brutally honest here. If it wasn't for BMC, I'd had a harder time getting laid in High School and College.
So Thank You for carrying the torch for the sexually challenged younger generation.

Happy to help!

Inkleg wrote: Now that that's out of the way.
Congratulations! On everything, the job, the marriage (hell of a guy you have there, sticking by you!) and your own tenacity for seeing your future and going for it!!!!!
In reading your answer to Beer-lords question, I can see that you really enjoy your job and that is all that matters.
BTW? How are the kitties? How did the move go for them?

Love you both and hope to see more of you.

Thanks so much, Inkleg! I think of you a lot, because I still have your naked cat bottle cap magnets on my fridge.

I have some bad news about the kitties... We are down to 2 now, from 4. We lost one to congestive heart failure, and another to cancer, within several months of each other last year. It was so heartbreaking, they were my two baby boys. Now we are down to our two little girls, and they are adjusting well to the move. Right now, we are living in a hotel, waiting to close on our new house in August. So it's me, the hubby, and two cats in a tiny room with an even tinier kitchen... And we have cabin fever bad! But the cats are loving it! The two girls have actually started to bond with each other - something they never did before. I hope it will continue after we get into our new home.

How have you been, Inky? How are the felines?

Welcome back! I'm thrilled that you are working in brewing. Who knows where kit may lead?