SALON

Thursday, Jun 12, 2008 2:14 PM UTC

The king of beer mergers

Will patriotic Americans stand by while a foreign brewery chugs down red-white-and-blue Budweiser? Or will they say, good riddance!

By

Topics: Globalization, How the World Works, Beer,

Here’s a challenge for any enterprising reporters who really want to put John McCain and Barack Obama on the “free trade” spot. Ask the candidates how they feel about the hostile takeover bid made for Anheuser-Busch Wednesday by InBev, a Brazilian-Belgian brewery conglomerate. Could John McCain, for example, really stand aside and cheer as control of Budweiser passed overseas?

To some Americans, this foreign invasion is far more significant than any attempt to wrest control of American ports or railroads. This is a struggle for America’s very essence! Budweiser is iconic. Missouri’s politicians are up in arms, and at SaveBudweiser.com, more than 31,000 patriotic Americans have already signed a petition opposing the merger.

To understand the full significance of what’s at stake, let’s hand the microphone to John Hopkins, a columnist for the Telegraph in Alton, Ill., a town just north of St. Louis, where Anheuser-Busch is headquartered.

A-B is so much more than just a hometown company. It is a symbol to the world of the best of the brewer’s art, a pride that goes back centuries, born in Europe and refined in America. It is the Clydesdales, the Dalmatians and the fire wagon, all hailing the arrival of the King of Beers. It is salary and benefits to over 6,000 area employees, supporting in turn the stores, the malls, the banks and the other bastions of the local economy. It is a first class, civic minded, corporate neighbor, always standing ready to lend a helping hand, contributing over $12 million to local charities last year.

Bit by bit, piece by piece, the heritage that we hold as common is disappearing. The legacy that we share as Americans is not only in the history we learn, but in the products we make, the companies that feed and give the dignity of work to our people, in the pride of jobs expertly done. When this vanishes, a piece of our collective soul goes with it. For the generations to follow, we need to preserve that which binds, that which distinguishes, that which marks us as not just citizens of the world, but as holders of the American spirit. We commit violence to history if it can later be said that the legacy passed down to us was not conquered, was not stolen, but sold. We must fight to keep the Eagle flying.

How the World Works admits — a little part of me dies inside every time the founders (or descendants of the founders) of a company are forced to bow to the wishes of their shareholders and sell out to outside buyers. This bothers me just as much when no evil foreign influence is involved (e.g., Microsoft’s efforts to buy Yahoo) as when America’s collective soul is at risk. And given InBev’s reputation as a tight-fisted penny-pincher, one can definitely make a case that jobs are at risk if InBev succeeds in its bid. (Of course, the jobs argument never seems to carry much sway when, say, a ruthless New York-based private equity fund is swooping in to buy a beleaguered domestically based company.)

But hold on just a minute.

The best of the brewer’s art?

The heritage that we hold as common?

We must fight to keep the Eagle flying?

I know these are dangerous waters in which to tread, and that I will soon be pilloried as a coastal elitist beer snob, but I must be true to my own deeply held beliefs. Anheuser-Busch, the controller of half the U.S. beer market, symbolizes everything that is wrong with America. With special emphasis on the foul stain upon the brewer’s tradition that goes by the name Bud Light. Great-tasting? Have we all gone mad?

For true beer-lovers across the world, Budweiser is a joke. It’s embarrassing. Since when does America mean watered-down pablum, forced down the throats of an unthinking populace by sheer power of mass-marketing muscle? Since when does America stand for homogenized, lowest-common-denominator swill? Michelob? Busch? These are not the names of American patriots — these are signposts of the triumph of a particular strain of capitalism in which true identity and taste are sacrificed in the service of gaining greater market share.

If we’re looking for real American icons that represent the grandest traditions of our Founding Fathers, who threw off foreign rule so they could stand independent and seek their own destiny, we have to search elsewhere than in the realm of giant conglomerates with humongous Super Bowl advertising budgets. I’m talking home brewers, microbreweries, and those brave, privately owned breweries that have yet to sell out to the false dream of “going public” — and all the betrayal of brewer freedom that such slavery to the market implies.

In other words, give me Sierra Nevada, or give me death.

The King of Beers. Pfft. Let the Brazilian-Belgians have it. American eagles deserve stronger stuff.

Andrew Leonard

Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21. More Andrew Leonard.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 73 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
266 points267 points | 56 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
248 points249 points | 10 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
193 points194 points | 1 comment
vote
Today in How Did I Miss This: Iowa GOP is pushing to cut the pay of the remaining Supreme Court Justices that voted for legalization of gay marriage.
74 points75 points | 7 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
52 points53 points | 8 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations