Inside the booze industry

The "drunk bus" driver\nMidnight Special driver Don Taylor tends to think of his job as baby-sitting. He does deal with vomit and urine, after all. \nMore commonly known as the "drunk buses," the Midnight Special buses start running at 11 p.m. and run until 4 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. From 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., they run three set routes. Then, from 1 to 4 a.m., they pick up people from downtown locations and take them to their desired destinations. \nTaylor is not oblivious to the purpose of his job. \n"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on," Taylor said, regarding the prevalent weekend drinking among college students around Bloomington. \nBut underage or not, his goal is to safely transport all riders.\nTaylor has a few rules for his riders, regardless of whether they are intoxicated.\n He doesn't allow fighting, and he draws the line when people are disrespectful. \n"If they call me a name and I know who does it, they're going to be walking," he said. \nHe also kicked a rider off for breaking a bus window. The police were called, and the rider ended up paying for a new window.\nTaylor hears plenty of foul language while working. He tries to ignore it, but some of the drunken riders' bad habits rub off on him.\n"I go home talking like a sailor and my wife has to correct me," Taylor said. \nOne night, a passenger used her bus seat as a toilet. Taylor left three passengers on his bus while he stopped to use the restroom. When he returned, he noticed the smell of urine. Taylor said they all denied it, so he made them walk home.\n"It was safer to kick all of them off, and I knew the other two would give her hell all the way home," Taylor said.\nTaylor can't quite decide what it is that makes his job worthwile. \n"When the tips are good, you make decent money," he said. \nBut Taylor said after decades of driving for a living, he loves people.\nThe bartender\nFor bartender Thad Thomas, there is more to his job than just making drinks. \nBartenders have to "oversee everything," Thomas said. \nAn IU graduate who majored in fitness, 24-year-old Thomas has been bartending at Kilroy's Bar & Grill for about a year. Thomas said that on busy nights, Kilroy's employs 10 bartenders. \n"There's door staff to make sure there are no fights, but we're the ones who see it first because it's happening over our bar," Thomas said.\nHe said the hardest part of his job is organizing and keeping up with orders when business gets busy. \nThomas said he encounters numerous types of customers every night. Some customers assure Thomas he'll receive a generous tip, but sometimes, they won't tip him at all. \nThe police officer\n"Any large university is going to have some problem with alcohol." said Sgt. Don Schmuhl, who has worked with the IU Police Department for 33 years. \nThe busiest time of year for alcohol complaints is from the beginning of the fall semester through November, he said, adding that Little 500 also causes an increase in alcohol-related activity. Homecoming weekend brings an "influx of people" to campus, so the police department is "stretched out to the extreme with the officers available," Schmuhl said.\nMost people he encounters who have been drinking are cooperative, but there are always the exceptions. \nOnce, while working the third shift -- from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. -- Schmuhl answered a bank alarm on Kirkwood Avenue. Everything looked fine at the front of the bank so he walked around to the rear and saw a man sitting on the curb. Schmuhl said the man had cut an electric wire to the building in order to cut off the power and was attempting to pry open the back door to enter the bank. Schmuhl assumed the man was trying to rob the bank and said the man's blood-alcohol concentration was above 2.0.\nThe brewmaster\nUpland Brewing Co. provides an alternative bar experience for college students who are interested in quality over quantity. Upland's Marketing Manager Scott Johnson believes there's no denying the stereotype that college students tend to prefer cheaper beer, but that it's "nice to leave the party, Natty Light scene sometimes." \nThere is an entire science behind brewing. 28-year-old Caleb Staton, the head brewer, has been in charge of the brew room at Upland for the past three years. His job entails the technicalities behind the beer, as he provides recipes and makes sure the taste of each new drink is consistent with the Upland style. \nUpland regularly brews five beers: Wheat, Amber, Pale, Dragonfly IPA and Bad Elmer's Porter, in addition to eight seasonal beers.\nAn Irish Imperial Red Ale, Upland's strongest beer, is being bottled for the first time this year.\nIt is a big decision to switch a beer from being sold strictly on draft to being bottled, because there is so much packaging involved.\n"Really, we start with the seasonal and see if it becomes a popular in-house hit, with the potential to grow year after year," Staton said. "Then, we go ahead and stick it in the glass (bottles)."\nThe four main ingredients in beer are water, yeast, hops and malt. The drink contains many degrees of malt, making the color vary and the taste rich and sugary.\nAccording to Johnson, about half of the brewery's customers are college students. He believes this popularity is due to Upland's rare appeal. \n"It's a unique thing to go off downtown (Bloomington) square and be at Indiana's largest brewery," he said.