"So you say the beer caused food poisoning?"

Anecdote related to the readers of Elizabeth Large's blog at the Baltimore Sun by Brewer's Art co-owner Volker Stewart:

I was sitting in the office one Monday morning when I got a call from a man who told me that he had suffered food poisoning from one of our beers. I found this surprising, as there aren't really any pathogens that like beer (and if you get an infection from a common bacterium like lactobacillus you can tell immediately because the beer tastes horrible). I asked him for more details, and eventually asked him what he had eaten that day. His reply: "Nothing." I: "Nothing? All day?" He: "That's right." I:"And how many beers did you have?" He: "4 or 5."


I mentioned to him that I could not remember the last time I had 4 beers on an empty stomach, but that I was fairly certain that I probably vomited. The conversation kind of fizzled at that point....