America and Beer, the two go together like ..well, America and Beer. America's beer factories are some of the largest the world has ever seen, and its micro-brews spread throughout all the land From Boston, all the way down to Pasadena. No matter what state, city, or time zone you are in, it seems that the love of beer is just as American as apple pie. The other day I had my 100th American beer, and it's just in the nick of time too, because something happened that may change the landscape of American Beer as we know it.
Before I talk about the ground breaking development, It is only fitting I take time to celebrate my 100th American friend. Since it was such a milestone, I figured I wanted to make it count, so I decided to go for the lovely taste of a Barley Wine. I went with the Avery Brewing Company's Hog Heaven Barley Wine. Without boring you, lets just say, it was very yummy. It's very rare to find a beer with such hops but at the same time a nice full flavor behind it. Thankfully the Avery Brewing company is located in Oregon, because if this baby was located anywhere near Missouri, I may have not had my 100th "American beer", let me explain further.
So sticking to current events(Yes it happened three weeks ago, but I've been to lazy to write about it), The almighty Anheuser-Busch, Inc. got bought out by the Belgium company InBev. The company behind Budweiser, Michelob, Busch and even...Odoul's, is no longer officially American. But its not just the big names, Anheuser bought out a lot of micro-brews, having their total beer products go up to 105 different kinds of beer. To put this in perspective, Since my 100th american beer, I have drank 4 more. If all of my 104 beers happened to be from Anheuser-Busch, my entire work of drinking those 104 beers, would be in question now as to whether they should still be considered American Beer or not.
This begs along the lines of the good ol shakespeare question, "Would a rose be any sweeter by another name"(Im totally paraphrasing that..). Would an American Beer be less American if owned by any other country? Think about all those Bud ad's you see, college men being all manly, the iguana's chilling in the bayou, people saying Wazaaaa, all these images that fit the american beer culture(in a negative light...effing Iguanas..), anytime you see one of those ad's now it will have to be ok'd by....Belgium. I personally am happy for this move, because I can't stand Anheuser, this is almost like the opposite situation of when Michael Jackson bought those Beatle songs. It's like someone is snatching the rights to the devil and overseeing its future. Now will Inbev just let the ship sailing as it is? Or are we going to see a major change in one of America's biggest franchises.
And before we go, hopefully this will make you realize how HUGE beer is. InBev bought out Anheuser for 56 Billion dollars. BILLION. That made it the hugest pure cash transaction in...you ready for this?..HISTORY! Think about anything that can be owned, then realize that Anheuser just sold for more than anything could ever sell. In doing research(and by doing I mean, I got my friend Anna to do it for me..) if you compare this to other recent corporate buyouts, it doesn't even come close. Youtube. Everyone you know uses it, your mother, your father, your dog. Well Google bought out Youtube for 1.65 Billion dollars. For that to equal this recent beer buyout, there would have to be 50 Youtubes, 50! I don't even think I know 50 websites period. To compare it to some physical property though, K-Mart bought out Sears for 11 Billion Dollars. Think of all the Sears you can think of, then think of how many their actually are..now times that by 5, and then you may be close to the huge sale that just happened.
So to put it in perspective, America IS Beer. We may not realize it, or want to, but just a month ago, America had two of the top three breweries in the world. Anheuser and SAB Miller. Now with InBev's purchase of Anheuser, InBev is the biggest beer producer in the world, with SAB Miller a close second, and no one really being a close third. With NBA players now flocking to Europe, and with the most Iconic Beer company, for better or worse, not even being American anymore, it seems like the times are changing. So my advice to all of you is, enjoy your american beers while you still can, depending on what Inbev wants to do with Budweiser, we could be seeing a big change in the beer world. And the only reason I give a damn is because if my beloved Yuengling gets changed in anyway...i'm gonna start dropping H-Bombs.
P.S Coincidentally, my next few posts are going to be about my recent trip to Belgium. So..thats kinda funny.
3 comments:
Thanks for the link to your blog... (finally)
I still hold to my belief that what is made in America should be considered American, and not who it is owned by. (I guess by that reasoning Walmart is a Chinese company huh...) You certainly would not call music by, for example, B.B. King, Ashlee Simpson, or G n' R French, simply cause they are owned by Vivendi.
Despite that, I do hope that InBev makes some changes as I will not drink the majority of Anheuser-Busch beers in their current state.
My Sheffield Wednesday Soccer Uniform was made in Taiwan. Does that mean when I rock this out in public I'm really reping Taiwan?
I think whoever the creative control belongs to gets the bragging rights, man power and machinery can be done by anyone. So if Bud still has creative control its american, but if things start to switch up, and every decision is made by belgian people, then all the Anheuser is , is just machinery churning out things.
Yeah that was too general of a statement to make. It is a little stickier situation when it comes to artistic creations though as they are influenced by the area around where they are made. For example, where did the recipe come from, and where does the water, malt, hops and yeast come from?
When they started brewing Guinness in Canada it certainly didn't change to a Canadian beer, but it definitely does taste different from the pre-Canadian Guinness. Also, most Irish folk, or visitors, have said that it tastes vastly different in its homeland.
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