Ruh roh. Via OTB, Anheuser-Busch has been sold to InBev:
Anheuser-Busch agreed on Sunday night to sell itself to the Belgian brewer InBev for about $52 billion, putting control of the nation’s largest beer maker and a fixture of American culture into a European rival’s hands.
InBev confirmed details of the sale Monday in Brussels.
The all-cash deal, for $70 a share, would create the world’s largest brewer, uniting the maker of Budweiser and Michelob with the producer of Stella Artois, Bass and Brahma. Together, the two companies would have sales of more than $36 billion a year, surpassing the current No. 1 brewer, SABMiller of London.
At least it wasn’t the French, AMIRITE. And clearly Obama was a moron last week for suggesting that people should want their children to learn multiple languages because of our need to be competitive in the global economy.
calipygian
Belgians are the masters at creating and exploiting chaos in the beknighted third world. Just ask any resident of the former Belgian Congo.
The wingers should approve.
And we don’t need to master no steenking foreign languages to maintain competitiveness. Just ask the marketing geniuses at GM trying to sell the Nova in Central and South America! And GM is still a mighty American company? AMIRITE?
Napoleon
The famous “no go” car!
TR
I’m having flashbacks to “Murder by Death,” with James Coco sniffily declaring “I am not a Frenchie, I am a BELGIE!”
cleek
mmm. Stella.
TR
I believe you mean, “STELLLLLLAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!”
dan robinson
How is American beer like making love in a row boat?
Because they are both fucking close to water.
Dennis - SGMM
Masterful timing by InBev. Being drunk will become a necessity as the economy further unravels.
Dreggas
gee, maybe budweiser will become a decent beer again.
TR
As someone who crushed three tall boys while grilling out last night, I urge you to take a second look.
I’ve been known to beer-snob it with the best of them, but there’s something to be said for a bare-bones basic pilsner, especially when they’re ice cold on a hot day.
4tehlulz
I don’t like the idea of mah Bass being in the same company as Bud.
At least it wasn’t Coors.
clone12
Budweiser, who bought out Sea World in California, plastered the whole place with attack ads against Miller along the line of “Hey, they’re not even owned by Americans!”
Time for plan B, I guess.
rachel
At leastIt’s a pity it wasn’t Coors.Zifnab
I was a fan of Bud Select. Perhaps the only decent beer I’ve ever seen them make. That said, when push comes to shove, I’ll be ordering a Shiner.
Dennis - SGMM
InBev will likely do some “cost cutting” (Lay people off) at Anheuser but they don’t usually change the product. Whether or not that’s a good thing depends on how you feel about Bud. Having swilled Biere 33 in Vietnam (Not bad, actually) and San Miguel brought back in aircraft returning from the Philippines, I am not a beer connoisseur. If it’s hot and the beer is cold I’ll generally drink the stuff. The only exceptions I ever made were for Jax and Pearl.
Andrew
Mmmmm, formaldehyde-y rice water!
Ronnie P
So Samuel Adams is now the largest US-owned brewing company that actually brews beer (I think Pabst is bigger, but contracts out everything). Yuengling is #2, Sierra Nevada #3.
EdTheRed
Thank god for Yuengling…
GOms
“they don’t usually change the product”…not exactly correct. I worked for OB in South Korea for 3 and 1/2 years. They became a part of InBev (then Interbrew) around 1997. In 2006, after the Brazilian schmucks took over, they began purchasing there malt and hops from China, against the wishes of the brewmasters and researchers at OB. The result? A shitty beer got worse. When you open an OB there is a distinct aroma that is just fowl. And even though I received so much free beer that I had to give a lot away to other foreigners in town, I still went out and bought Hoegaarden and Leffe Dark at the E-Mart!
Another note, the company is no longer run by Belgians, it is run by a bunch of fuckin gits from Brazil who only know and care about the bottom line…they don’t care how they get there…
horatius
And how much of this 52 billion ends up in the hands of that drug-addict heiress that married that social-climber-adulterer who’s running for prez?
Dennis - SGMM
Ouch! Thanks for the correction.
b. hussein canuckistani
You don’t need foreign languages if all you’re going to do is buy the crap and get drunk. But you’ll need a French speaking lawyer if you want to do anything about dead mice in the bottles.
EdTheRed
@canuckistani: no way, eh! I’ll just take that bottle straight to the brewery and demand 12, no, TWENTY FOUR free bottles of Elsinore beer!
Snarki, child of Loki
…before the deal goes through, InBev is sending out some Bud Light for chemical analysis.
When they get back the report: “We’re sorry, but your horse has diabetes”, they’ll have the option of backing out.
Too bad the Czech Budweiser wasn’t in on takeover bidding.
Michael Leza
For a second I thought you wrote it had been sold “on eBay,” not “to InBev.” I was like wow, I didn’t know you could even bid that high.
Billy K
InBev is actually a Brazilian company, headquartered in Brussels. I wonder why this is never brought up.
Also, the company was formed in 2005, and is basically just a multi-national conglomerate that buys up brands, cuts costs and makes a profit. It has little brewing heritage. Hey – it doesn’t get more “American” than that!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inbev
Also, who cares? Give me microbrews or give me death.
Jon H
Tastes like chicken?
Sarcastro
Time travel? Well, it’ll be the nineteenth century for me. One of Napoleon’s marshals. The chance to march across Europe with the greatest general of all time and kill Belgians. Marvelous!
cleek
we’re now a nation of micro-breweries !
Dreggas
I had one on the 4th because it was free but really I never have been a bud fan. Hell I am not a fan of most domestics save Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada.
EdTheRed
According to teh wikipedias, Boston Beer Company brews 1.358 million barrels a year, and Yuengling brews 1.2 million barrels. Of course, Sam Adams is available nationwide, as well as in some countries overseas, while Yuengling is available in only 10 states and the District of Columbia. Which means that that 10-state-plus-DC region drinks a whole helluva lot of Yuengling. I know I do my part…USA! USA! USA! ;-)
Chris Johnson
BELGIUM!
Pelikan
Drinking american is one of those activities I wholeheartedly support, there’s probably a microbrewery in every state that’s not Utah, putting out quality product that would put even the Germans to shame.
Why stress over Bud when you can have Left Hand, Abita, Breckenridge, Rogue, Boulevard, New Belgium, New Holland, Two Brothers, Mendocino, Bells, Great Lakes, Stone, Dixie, Clipper City, Dark Horse, Three Floyds and Upland?
Or you could just have Bourbon, I’d like to see them try and make that in Belgium.
Dennis - SGMM
Mmmmm, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
Sirkowski
Cette Bud est pour toi!
or
Ce copain est pour toi!
Frank Wilhoit
Is this one of those deals, like the MCI / WorldCom merger, where the target gets bought with the target’s money? Because there aren’t fifty billion dollars IN Belgium; they wouldn’t FIT. As Wender Glijs pointed out in his memoir, “Les Belges m’emmerdent”, the gross national product of Belgium has to be measured in Belgian francs because no other unit of measurement is small enough.
Rome Again
I’ve never been much of a AB beer drinker myself, but I always did like those pretty horsies. Are we going to have to start calling them the InBev Clydesdales now?
dadanarchist
Does that mean that Budweiser will make better beer now? They could probably take a few tips from the Belgians in that department.
Gus
I’ll never turn down a cold beer on a hot day, but I’d still rather have a Summit Hefe Wiezen, a Bell’s Oberon, or a New Glarus Spotted Cow.
Redleg
That explains all the new Budweiser commercials celebrating the Busch family brewing legacy.
Colonel Danite
Hey, don’t dis Utah! Next time you get to Park City, stop by the Wasatch Brew Pub and try one of my favorite beers, Polygamy Porter. Utah Beer
Alex
That’s a false urban legend, actually. The Nova actually sold quite well in Latin America, and your average Spanish speaker would think that the word “Nova” means “Nova”, which has exactly the same meaning in Spanish as it does in English – an exploding star (actually, one might wonder why anyone who speaks any language would buy a car named after something most known for exploding violently, except that the literal meaning of model names doesn’t really matter).
Snopes has the full story.
Ignatz
Another reason to drink homebrew. I’m St. Louis born and bred, and I never could stomach Anheuser-Busch products. There was some slight hope back when they put out their Prohibition beers, but that faded and died quickly. If you’re in the area, try Schlafly’s.
Bill In OH
When I was in Salt Lake City in the late nineties there were at least three brewpubs there. The only one I remember was called Redtail. They had a decent pale ale and a pretty good stout. I don’t know if they’re still open.
Sometimes a cold Pils is good, but ever since I found Bell’s Oberon, it’s become my go-to summer beer. As far as Bud’s concerned, I’ve never been a fan. It seems to give me a headache almost immediately. From my POV I doubt inBev can make the product significantly worse, but having been through one, these sales never seem to work out well for the employees of the purchased company. I feel for the people of AB. I suspect that tough times are ahead.
John Cole
I generally prefer scotch or wine over beer, but my all-purpose drink is generally a vodka tonic when they have swill at the bar for scotch, and when I get a wild hair up my ass, it is game on tequila.
But if I am forced to drink beer, I would have to say that my all-time favorite was the Celebrator Doppelback. If they don’t have anything decent, I generally just settle for a Guiness, even though it tastes like shit in the US and the stupid bastards always serve it too cold.
maxbaer (not the original)
How about calling a car a Camino? It means “I walk” doesn’t it?
Paul
The quintessential small brew from Utah is Wasatch’s Polygamy Porter!
Fern
Will this improve the quality of the beer?
One can only hope.
mikefromtexas
The quality of American beers forced me to start drinking Mexican brews a long time ago. Bohemia, Modelo, both the dark and especial, among others are truly superior. Except Corona, you can just flush that crap.
grumpy realist
Well, there is always Rasputin Stout….don’t know how close it is to the actual historical Imperial Russian Stouts, but tastes pretty good!
Oh, and if you drink Asahi, what’s sold in the US is actually manufactured here under license. Perverts. (My Japanese friends can indeed tell the difference.)
4jkb4ia
I was waiting to write this for 24 hours, so:
This is funereal. Anheuser-Busch was the leading corporate citizen in this burg. The only consolation that I have is that all the national papers ran with Fannie and Freddie as the big story and stuck this one as a marginal paragraph. (WSJ had it on B1)
4jkb4ia
I agree with Ignatz. Schlafly’s is actual beer.
Big E
a lil bit off topic tho’ it’s about biz:
Sometimes news jumps out at you and makes you wonder what the heck is going on.
Why, when there are new daily high prices for gas and heating oil, is the U.S. shipping oil overseas?
A record 1.6 million barrels a day, around 9 percent of total U.S. refining capacity is being exported overseas by U.S. oil companies. These same exports equal half the 3.2 million barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products the United States imported each day over the 4-month period.
What good any new drilling would be if it’s not coming online for many years, won’t bring down prices and half will be shipped outside of America?
Keifus
Well, at least it wasn’t the Czechs (he repeated, still chuckling to himself). Bohemian Budweiser? That’d be mindblowing.
As for the idea that Bud is a stripped-down pilsner, I can’t really agree: it’s a pilsner loaded down with lots of rice. An American-style pilsner would be a legit label, I think.
Keifus
Well, at least it wasn’t the Czechs (he repeated, still chuckling to himself). Bohemian Budweiser? That’d be mindblowing.
As for the idea that Bud is a stripped-down pilsner, I can’t really agree: it’s a pilsner loaded down with lots of rice. An American-style pilsner would be a legit label, I think.
Alex
Not as a noun – the car is an “El Camino”. That means “avenue” or “way”, as in the major California street “Camino Real”, which literally means “Royal Way”.
Stuart Eugene Thiel
We should have sold A-B to Iran in the hope that it would kill a lot of them.