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Yeah, we know…this is a blog about beer, not about lawyers. But we couldn’t resist passing along this story about Molson Coors Brewing’s chief legal officer, Sam Walker. It caught our eye and is a fascinating look inside one of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s top competitors.

Just to recap, Molson Coors is a global brewing company with 5,200 employees, nine breweries and operations in more than 30 countries. In the U.S., it has teamed up with SABMiller of London and does business as MillerCoors.

Lots of legal issues arose with that deal, and Walker is right in the middle of them. A native of Madison, Wisc., he leads a team of 25 lawyers and 30 support staff who handle legal, public affairs, corporate responsibility, corporate governance and water and natural resources matters. From the story:

The litigation load is fairly typical for a large seller of consumer products. “We might find ourselves in disputes with distributors, tax issues with governments - and beer company advocacy for alcohol responsibility is a critical part of what we do,” [Walker] said.

Walker said one of his unusual duties is holding “moot court” at earnings disclosure time. Before the quarterly earnings conference calls, he grills his executive colleagues on the financial results. “I’ll pretend to be the journalists,” he said, “and ask penetrating questions.”

Walker takes to the mountains periodically to check Coors’ water supply from a glacier high in the Rocky Mountains. “We have a staff of 10 looking after our water rights in Colorado. Water is subject to a highly developed legal system, and we make sure that the water is clean and the rivers and streams are unobstructed, which is something lawyers don’t usually get to do.”

Heck, most journalists don’t get out in the wild like that. Cool.