(Wall Street Journal)The keg is becoming the new water cooler.At least, that's the case at such firms as the Boston advertising agency Arnold Worldwide, where workers cluster around a beer-vending machine-nicknamed Arnie-after the day's client meetings are done. As they sip bottles of home-brewed beer, employees exchange ideas and chitchat, often sticking around the office instead of heading to a nearby bar.Plenty of offices provide free food to their workers, but as the workday in many tech and media companies stretches past the cocktail hour, more companies are stocking full bars and beer fridges, installing on-site taverns and digitized kegs and even deploying engineering talent to design futuristic drink dispensers.The perk, firms say, helps lure talent, connects employees across different divisions and keeps people from leaving the office as the lines between work and social lives blur.But employment lawyers worry that encouraging drinking in the workplace can lead to driving while intoxicated, assault, sexual harassment or rape. Plus, it may make some employees uncomfortable while excluding others, such as those who don't drink for health or religious reasons.Drinking on the job has long been part of work life in the U.S. and abroad, whether it's a beer with colleagues in the United Kingdom or Japanese salarymen entertaining clients at sake bars. But holding happy hour in the office is different, experts say, because it brings after-hours activity into the professional space.Beer Water Cooler