Using caustic cleanser is a huge liability.
Try pH7X today — lower your risks, experience better cleaning — and better tasting beer!
A note from a friend of SNP on beer line cleaning and rinsing (or lack of).
Its so important to make sure lines are clean AND RINSED. This was a bad result, but it could have been much worse.
Hey guys,
It was an “induced” coma – general anesthesia for two days because they put me on a ventilator because they thought the burning in the throat would swell and block my breathing passages. I’m sitting in my hospital gown now, a week later, hopefully waiting for discharge papers so I can drive home and start my “post-incident” regimen of doctor visits and dietary restrictions. Here’s the generic story, but you may have read other versions of it before… both my wife and I have been sending notes out to friends.
While coming back from San Antonio to Huntsville, we stopped in New Orleans planning only two days here. It was lunchtime and we stopped in a random place with good yelp reviews. I ordered a beer I’ve had many times. It was a very dark place and I couldn’t see the beer, but I took in one swallow and my mouth exploded in fire. I was choking and gagging, and yelling for water. Someone said “they just cleaned the lines” and apparently one line still had cleaner in it. One interesting note was when people were trying to figure out what to give me. They found the bottle of line cleaner and it was mostly NaOH (caustic soda). One person said “baking soda” which would have been worse. The antidote for ingestion written on the bottle was vinegar (acid), but they didn’t have any close, so I kept swishing and spitting water. Turns out that was the right answer… According to the UMC hospital guys, pouring acid down a throat/stomach with with caustic base would have produced an exothermic reaction (generating heat) which would have done much more damage. The medical experts said water was the right solution. So now you know. The medical guys are going to contact the manufacturer and tell them the bottle of line cleaner should say to give water, not vinegar.
There was a fiasco with the ambulance that caused it to take about a half-hour to show up. While I was yelling with a Donald-duck voice and swishing water, the police lady shined her flashlight on the pint of “beer” and it was green with little white flecks floating down in it. And now I’m wrapping up a week in the hospital, allowed only soft foods and with voice and taste buds that are still a bit out of whack.
So… check your beer cautiously before taking a swig.