1 Potato, 2 Potato, 3 Potato, 4

Question: What do you do with seven too many potatoes?

Answer: Make homemade potato chips

YES, homemade potato chips… and as should be expected from all AB InBev employees with beer!

Disclaimer: Very unhealthy, a lot of oil, a lot of time, a lot of cutting

Ingredients used:

Grapeseed oil

Franks Red Hot Sauce (for the oil makes it spicy)

Budweiser

Potatoes

Seasoning

Step One:

Thoroughly wash potatoes, with skin on thinly slice with a Very sharp knife (be careful no one wants a friend pofinger chip) and soak in Budweiser to break down the starch

Step Two:

Combine the oil and the hot sauce in a wok or pot; put on max and allow to boil.

Step Three:

Add sliced potato into the boiling oil, and allow to fry until chips harder and curl.

Step Four:

Strain chip of oil and season.

Result: An amazing snack to bring to work to a) showcase your kitchen talent b) Munch on while crunching numbers on excel, and c) to squeeze more snugly into loose fitting clothing L.

When in Rome

Bonjour!!

Salut de Montreal! Hello again, I am back in Canada and ready to go. The last two weeks in St. Louis flew by, and the four of us jet-setted away to the Labatt Brewery in LaSalle. There are a few major items I feel I should share before hitting on Montreal, just to get you up to speed. Cela fait du sens, non? (Makes sense) 

a)      Global Induction

b)      Deadly Toe Disaster (not really, it just sounds more paramount this way)

c)      My own Baking with Beer adventure

So first up Global Induction. After Zone induction finished up for us, it was time for Global. To put this in perspective 118 GMT’s from all over the world (no really, Bolivia, Argentina, China, Russia, Netherlands, Scotland…etc) got together, informed one another of the challenges and markets in their home countries, their traditions- in particular Brazil with extreme energy, table banging, and singing, and worked together on a series of global dilemmas faced within ABI. The week was jammed solid, both of presentations from our Board, and activities and innovation projects. I had the opportunity of working on the Returnable Glass Bottle Market, and how it can be implemented across the globe. For those of you who are from Canada, and have this model ingrained into your brain (buy, return, deposit, buy, return, deposit), the model is very different in other areas of the world. In Brazil for instance, you purchase the bottle and only pay for the beer each time. In France you can actually select what beer you want poured into a bottle- somewhat like a beer bulk barn. Every country is so different, and trying to come up with a way to improve existing markets and begin returnables in countries that do not have it is an ongoing challenge. All and all Global was a great experience, and I had the opportunity to meet so many people and hear so many stories (Goats are the lawnmowers of choice in Brazil- so smart, no money spent on hiring anyone, and your goat eats grass so no need to feed it). I also met some amazing people, tried fried ravioli (everything is fried in STL really) some frozen custard, and even saw a Cardinals Baseball Game. Cardinals won by the way, by a landslide, and we got some awesome fake tattoo McDon sleeves- it was for charity.

However, as like most adventures the week did not come without a few bumps along the way, or lacerations I should say. SO, while getting into a cab on my way to a local venue with some friends, a rather large shard of metal, quaintly disguised under the back seat of the cabby’s passenger seat, decided to attack my middle toe. Looking back now, I feel like a complete fool- and no not because I was being careless getting in (which I wasn’t) because I think I was more worried about getting my shoe off (so I didn’t cover it with blood), than my toe. I was quite the trooper I must admit, and after A LOT of gauze and a lot of tape, I put on some flip flops and tried to meet up with everyone. I was home within ten minutes in pain, and was advised to go see a doctor the next morning. Sure enough, some stitches were in order. To bad I’m not the suing type, might have had a case. I did have a pretty good doctor though… got about 2/3 of my toe frozen, the other 1/3 he told me to deal with. I want to point out these were the first stitches I had ever gotten…Traumatic? When in St. Louis right? To be honest as North America’s 2^nd most dangerous city, I can deal with just a toe incident. Oh, word of advice, if you do decide to travel to the US get some medical coverage. That stuff gets expensive. On the upside though, since it was a little hard to motor around the airport with heavy carryon’s and a foot with stitches, I got speed wheeled around in a wheelchair. Slightly humiliating, but time effective. Jack is a crazy driver PS, I made Danielle take control before I got slammed into a side wall. She is a great wheeler let me tell you. And so we left STL to our first brewhouse location intact and ready to start.

Our first weekend in Montreal, I got to put my beer expense into effect!!!! Got a whole case of Budweiser 4, (currently only offered in Montreal- all the taste of a Budweiser, but the alcohol and calories of a Bud Light) and a bunch of recipes to try cooking. Only catch, all items had to be made and cooked with beer. Four courses, four beers, a lot of fun… and a lot of food. To start we mase a citrus and avocado salad with Keith’s White as a pairing (the dressing even had beer in it). Second was a spicy red sauce Bolognese pasta paired with Budweiser 4 (the pasta was boiled in Bud and Clamato juice). Next, came seasoned chicken and pork chops cooked and paired with Labatt 50, and last but not least apple pie and cheddar cheese with Stella. SOOOO tasty. There are so many amazing things you can pair and make with beer; just think of it as water. Anytime you would add liquid to a recipe add beer and cook with it that way. As a rule of thumb, if you cook with it in the recipe it will taste good with it when you eat it. Generally for spice you want a crisp clean beer that will slice right though the heat, and for a creamier taste or a strong cheese you want a hoppier beer. Go home and try it out, there are countless recipes online or the Zythology (Science of beer and food) Iphone app.

Happy Eats! Later Gators!

Once Upon a Time

So the first two weeks of my journey with AB InBev are up, and boy has it been a ride. It has been all but boring. As with most adventures there have been a few bumps a long the way, but also a whole lot of excitement, exploration, and fun. Organized chaos you could say.

First a few blunders of my own. Day one I decided to wear a very lovely yellow dress shirt to work… and sure enough walking to the Queens Quay office I also wore my coffee. Great impression to be standing under a blow drier right before you meet with the president of the company eh? Anywho, if that was not bad enough along came lunch, and the hot sauce decided to meet up with the coffee on more than once place. I’d like to add everyone else at the lunch table decided to wear bibs to prevent my morning accident, but being the stubborn individual that I am, I decided not to! Stains:2, Jenessa:0. Lucky for me the rest of the week I avoided looking like a bad sunlight commercial.

Aside from a few technical login and administrative issues (Miglietta is apparently quite the difficult name to work with) Queens Quay was amazing. Everyday I had the fortunate opportunity to meet with upper senior executives and learn the ways of the beer warriors. It is unbelievable how complex and dynamic the company is. Did you know the main warehouse in Mississauga holds inventory in the order of millions of dollars. I swear it was like a Super Walmart, with pallets of beer as far as the eye can see. Did I mention the forklifts that ran the show motored everywhere and anywhere at mach speed- Hwy 401 meets Taledaga. What I found particularly interesting about the entire week was the level of acceptance, equality, and friendliness every employee had towards us. There was no question left unanswered. Whatever we asked, people were more than happy to answer. To take this one step further, if you were to look inside the office yourself, you would find the entire office to be open concept, with management sitting among everyone else. It just further affirmed how amazing and unique the company was. After a busy week, full of long hours, enough information to make anyone’s head hurt, and a lot of great food and fun it was time for St. Louis.

The real excitement came at the airport, where Jack was refused entry on the plane, the engine needed repair, we almost missed our connection, the second flight was delayed by 3 hours, and a few bags got some serious damage. I would also like to point out after all this, Jack beat the three of us to St. Louis on his replacement flight. I may also have lost a bit of water weight with all the running and scrambling to make it to the gate on time. Sitting here writing this outside by a lit pool at 10:30 I can easily say it was all worth it. Our first two days were an intensive boot camp for brewing- and our American Counterparts were pretty awesome. It speaks wonders about the company when they can hire people in completely different area codes and nations, and when they all come together they meld as one. Now back to boot camp. So both days were full of tastings (32 beers to be precise) learning to pour a perfect Stella, going though the brewing process, and a beer pairing dinner (if you ever have a chance to do this, do it… it was wonderful! I have never had beer bring out the flavor in my food so much). Of course there was also a lot of taking in of the night life here in the city… two words “Billy Bucket” look it up, learn it, live it, love it- most certainly the best offering of the Library Annex.

Speaking of the local area, I was also lucky enough to take a little break from the downtown core and travel to a small town called Potosie, to visit one of the American’s vineyard. This was AMAZING. Two days full of rolling country side, skeet shooting (hit every clay pigeon), bison burgers, and wine tasting. I can easily say I heart Potosie!

Sorry for such a long schpeal, but currently I am happy as a clam. I could do without the disgustingly large cell phone bill from roaming, but I would not trade even a minute of the last two weeks for anything. Coming into this, I had my reservations about all the traveling and meeting of new people, but looking back on this last week I had nothing to worry about. As a great person here said, “Sometimes I hate that I am a real person, and then I remember that I work for a beer company, and that it is amazing”. Cheers for now. I’ll update you again soon.