time. But this is not a drawback, for the
slightest abnormality during production is
detected by the local breweries, each of
which has its own quality control
department. In the event of a real calamity,
however, the Quality Control Section in
Zoeterwoude strides into action and goes
to take a look for itself at the broken piece
of equipment or the faulty production
process. Skilled technicians are available in
Zoeterwoude to make the necessary
repairs to specialized equipment.
Fortunately, the factories abroad do not
have to wait until something really does go
wrong before they receive a visit from a
representative of the Quality Control
Section. Regular visits are paid to the
various countries according to a fixed
schedule. A good-quality product cannot
simply be guaranteed by specifying the
standards and recipes in bulky instruction
manuals. There must also be a regular
exchange of information. And that is
certainly not the same as Holland simply
laying down the rules. Our people from
Zoeterwoude invariably learn from the
experience of personnel abroad who often
have to work under conditions completely
different from those we are used to in
Holland. This is why regular meetings are
organized at which the staff responsible for
product quality can swap experiences. For
the same reason we have a training
department in Zoeterwoude where all
those who have to keep our beer up to an A1
standard are taught everything they need
to know to perform their job optimally.
Basically, they are all members of one big
family, specializing solely in supplying the
best that is humanly possible. They are
assisted in this work by complicated
apparatus but, when all is said and done,
only a human can judge taste. This is why
the samples which arrive each month are
also sent to a tasting panel, whose
members are given the various beers
brewed in the various companies. But, to
make it impossible for the panel members
to be influenced in their judgement by the
colour of the beer, the samples are served
in red glasses. These skilled tasters have
proved to be much better at identifying
flavour characteristics than complicated
pieces of apparatus. The latter only take
over when, for instance, one of the drinks
tastes wrong and an exact determination
has to be made of just what is wrong with
the taste. If the taster says that a drink is
too bitter, the laboratory equipment can be
used to establish how much of which wrong
substance is causing that bitterness, after