This is Don, boss of our bottling line. His tasks? Don is brief: “Brewers brew. I take care of everything that needs to happen afterwards.” Don arrived a couple of years ago, when most of our beer was still consumed in our tasting room. We started to fill an increasing number of bottles and kegs back then and needed someone to organize all that. Don, with his typical Amsterdam bravado: “I seized that chance.”
Big man
He is now in charge of what has become quite an operation: filling all those kegs and bottles. “I make sure it happens, decide how it happens and by whom.” He is a general but a foot soldier too, if circumstances require.
Despite all his brains, skills and experience, even Don makes mistakes sometimes. But he does fix them too. Like that time he printed the wrong expiry date on some labels. Result: pallets full of unsaleable beer. “My worst fuck up ever”, calls misplacing those numbers. He subsequently single-handedly removed hundreds of labels. Took him a couple of weekends. “Still got flashback sometimes”, he shudders.
Emotions
The nice parts of the job? “I’ve been knowing everyone round here for years, know everyone by name.” Some of them even become friends he whispers, but then catches himself and shudders: “What cheesy emotional crap is this.”
Another nice aspect of the job is that we work with beer. “It’s not milk you know”, Don explains. For Don does appreciate a good class of beer, regularly. Keep your eyes open around in our tasting room or the other bars of the eastern part of town and you might spot him. Show some respect, Don does not take prisoners when he talks.
