Tuesday, July 15, 2008

This Bud's for InBev

What's a guy to do when even his beer is owned by a foreign company? Well, maybe not owned. We all know that you get to keep beer for a bit and then it is returned to be, shall we say, recycled?

I have never been a big time beer drinker. Can't tell you why, but I just never bought into the macho thing of drink and pee and pee and drink... It's not that I am rabidly anti-drinking, but as a Scot Irish I can tell you that booze brings out the fool in us.. No, I'll just settle for a VO or Stoly on the rocks or maybe a glass of cab with dinner. No value judgements, mind you. Have your fav and I'll have mine.

Looking back at my youth we had several brews that have since disappeared... Falstaff was memorable for having Dewey Phillips, a Memphis DJ, urge everyone to drink that "ole fall flat." We also had one.... I kid you not... called "Greasy Dick." The more astute of the locals would ask for a "GD" or "Greasy." I read somewhere it is still being brewed. How it has survived that name I do not know.

There were others. Some were "from the land of sky blue waters," others "tasted great and were less filling." One even made "Milwaukee Famous." Some were from "Iron City," and one became semi-famous over Mabel and the supposed easy, shall we say.. access to her charms?

Going through prep school at Norman, OK I discovered 3.2% beer. It was almost impossible to get a buzz off of it. However, Texas was just a few miles south and Lone Star, I think, was $4.50 a case.

Later traveling into the colder climes in the pursuit of the evil Rooskie I discovered Heineken and Tuborg. I loved Heineken and I remember a case of it was cheaper than a case of cokes. Heineken is in the US now... I had a bottle few months back and discovered the beer had changed or my memory had failed.. Probably both.

Had a friend in Norfolk who brewed his own with some success. He would take some and double distill it to make pot liquor.. probably 60 proof or so. It would, without question, impart a world class hangover.

Boutique breweries are "in" at the present. I like a "Fat Tire" every now and then, although I suspect it is named for what it will place around your middle.
But this business may be short lived. $5.50 diesel raises cain with distribution and smaller companies don't have the resources of larger companies.

Which brings us back to the purchase of Anheuser-Busch by InBev. Nothing in this silly season can escape politics. Missouri Demo Senator Claire McCaskill opines:

"We need to remember that InBev could afford this All-American company because of the weak dollar created by the economic policies of the last seven years. It's time for a change in our nation's economic priorities."


Which leads me to say, does the Senator think that blocking drilling for oil in the US and paying $145 a barrel have anything to do with it? No? Well, based on what I saw of her on Sunday's MTP I have no doubt she actually believes such nonsense.

And that's the scary part.










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