OLD VAN NUYS’ FINEST: Judy Noonan and...

OLD VAN NUYS’ FINEST: Judy Noonan and Janet Summerour are a real-life Laverne and Shirley. . . . They work in a madcap realm of exploding glass, screaming machinery and the incessant clink-clink-clink of millions of empty bottles scuttling along a conveyor belt that has no end. Each day, they report to the world’s third-largest brewery--the Anheuser-Busch plant, a cluster of factory buildings along the San Diego Freeway in Van Nuys (B1). Americans drank 5.8 billion gallons of beer last year, and the two women did their part to keep everyone’s glass full.

WATERY THREAT: Workers labored Sunday to repair a ruptured underground pipe that threatened water supplies for hundreds of residences in affluent hillside neighborhoods between Studio City and Beverly Hills (B1). . . . The five-foot-wide pipe burst Saturday morning beneath Coldwater Canyon Avenue in Studio City, uncorking a powerful geyser.

What’s Ahead

Breakdown of alcoholic beverages consumed by Americans: Beer: 80% Wine: 14% Distilled spirits: 6% Source: Beer Institute