European beer maker InBev offers to buy Anheuser-Busch for $46.9 billion

[sweet baby jesus]

Source: MSNBC

Breaking News on the front page of MSNBC

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

[TheDebbieDee]

1. BILLION dollars? Wow.........

They might as well try to buy Bill Gates - he's worth about $50 billion.

[maxsolomon]

2. please do. american macro beer SUCKS.

there's no reason the same quality that europeans expect in their beer can't be present in joke american "lagers" like miller-coors-bud-rolling rock-PBR-busch etc. ad nauseum.

and don't try & tell me those beers are good. not compared with a fresh german lager like Heidelberger.

[pattmarty]

9. Or EVEN a lot of American micro beers.

[maxsolomon]

10. well, i didn't feel it appropriate to go into my dislike of over-hopped beer in this thread

but i've basically stopped drinking beer because of it.

[Hayduke Lives]

14. Giving up beer?

I share your frustration, but I'm no quitter.

I have to agree about most American micros being over-hopped. You think about the great beers from Germany, England, Ireland, Scotland (personal favorite) and Belgium...none of them are hoppy.

The thing that I don't understand: hops are ridiculously expensive. Several brewers in my area are nearly going bankrupt buying hops on the spot market(except those smart enough to lock in prices last year). But they still keep rolling out the "triple hop extra bitter double IPA". It all tastes like low-grade home brew to me.

Gimme a pint of easy-drinking cask conditioned Scottish 80 shilling style ale. Is that too much to ask?

[maxsolomon]

44. "basically" means "not actually"!

but i haven't voluntarily had an american microbrew in years. i drink about 2 beers a month. but i drink about 2 glasses of wine a day.

the last 3 beers i had:

guiness
sol
newcastle

i've also enjoyed mackeson stout - made in cincinnati by euros who came over & bought out hudepohl (i think - i haven't lived in cincy since '91), & use their facilities & labor to make an actual scottish stout. $5.99/six @ trader joe's.

[DavidDvorkin]

28. I'm glad someone else feels the same way

Sometimes you can tell that there's a decent ale hiding beneath the hops avalanche. It's annoying. Not to mention really bad tasting.

[NutmegYankee]

33. I find that warming my ale up makes it taste much better.

I leave it out on the counter for a half hour or so. The warmer temp makes the flowery flavor of the hops oils come out and offset the bitterness. I think many people dislike ales because many Americans think beer should be super cold, and for lagers it's ok, but ales should be served warmer. I love ales in the summer time. They go quite nicely with the lack of AC at my place.

[customerserviceguy]

19. Go craft brew!

Sipping on a Sierra Nevada Fresh Hop Ale made with hops from New Zealand right now...

Mmm, mmm, good! :9

[NutmegYankee]

32. I second that!

Magic Hat #9 :beer:

[customerserviceguy]

48. Ah, the Hat!

One of the best brews you can find on tap in my part of NY. I sure miss the Pacific NW, my favorite pub (walking distance from my apt., stumbling distance back) had 20 beers on tap, there's not much variety here on this coast.

But I always choose MH#9 when it's available!

[MikeNearMcChord]

13. Heidelberger!!! Good Call, maybe we can have the beer purity law

passed in the US. Bitte eine Bit!

[jmowreader]

42. The Germans don't enforce that any more

The EC Court ruled several years ago that the Reinheigetsbot was a restraint on free trade. So it's not enforced anymore, which is why the beers that still hew to it brag on the label, "brewed according to the Beer Purity Law of 1562."

Besides, before you could enforce a "beer purity law" on a product, wouldn't the product actually have to be beer and not Budweiser?

[CatholicEdHead]

3. Sooner than later all the cheap beer will be made by one company

With this one, Coors-Miller, Fosters (Australia) is owned by Miller, LaBatts (Canada) is also owned by InBev.

If we get a InBev-Miller/Coors meger in coming years forget about country boundries, the entire cheap beer world will be literately flat with one monopoly.

/drinks craft beers all the time ;)

[FatDave]

4. Does that mean Budwesiser will start to taste good?

:shrug:

[pattmarty]

8. you beat me to it.

[Carnea]

23. It tastes good in Europe and is Irelands #1 beer. NT

[progetto]

34. I'll have a pint of Guinness instead. n/t

[Tesha]

38. Of course it does! Over there, it's an "imported" beer! ;-) (NT)

[Lance_Boyle]

43. Is that the American Budwesier, or the Czech one? n/t

[Carnea]

49. I had some it's not the American pisswater thats for sure NT

[David__77]

5. Don't mess with my Bud Light!

Sorry, but I love it. I despise real beer - I like my low-cal, watery beverage.

[Bigmack]

29. I KNOW you're not the problem...

cuz you're a DUer, but my wife and I bike a lot, and by far the most thrown-away-by-the-side-of-the-road beverage container is Bud Lite.

[Stingo]

6. They can have it

Not a good beer in the entire product line.

[Wizard777]

7. Doesn't Cindy Mc Cain own the company that distributes for Anheuser-Busch?

[Spouting Horn]

12. Beer companies in the

United States are separate from the beer distributorship's (of which her fortune comes from).

It's some arcane law that requires a middleman, and each middleman has exclusive rights to that product in their respective territories...and it's a license to print money.

I think one of Jesse Jacksons sons has one for the Chicago area.

[AlphaCentauri]

11. I prefer my non-alcoholic beer

[FatDave]

15. What, you don't want a buzz to interfere with peeing all night?

Kidding!
:toast:

[customerserviceguy]

20. It improves Alpha's "aim"!

just kidding, as well!

[AlphaCentauri]

37. LOL, now I won't tell you about my home-brew fermented beverages

:toast:

[customerserviceguy]

47. Hey

can I get a sample? Oh, wait, non-alchoholic, never mind! :cry:

[KillCapitalism]

16. I'm from St. Louis where Busch is located.

People that work for AB are scared as hell right now. If the deal goes through, it's thought that InBev may shut down a lot of US operation and move it to (you guessed it, a cheaper labor market) which will leave thousands out of a job. Even if you think AB products taste like piss, please hope that this deal does not go through.

[customerserviceguy]

21. They should be scared

anybody that makes an inferior product risks having people figure that out some day. I've seen A-B buy up small labels in order to foist the microbrew label on what becomes taste-free swill.

If you really want to do something ecologically sound, support your local microbrewer, you use recyclable "growlers" (half-gallon jugs) to cart the beer home, it doesn't use loads of fossil fuels to be transported hundreds of miles, just to sit in a refrigerated case at a supermarket, burning more energy. The energy used to transport the amount of hops in even one six-pack of my hop-bomb India Pale Ales is miniscule when compared to the energy needed to transport even one bottle of Bud.

[KillCapitalism]

24. Yeah, I do support local microbrewers.

This one is my favorite around here:

http://www.ofallonbrewery.com/ofallonbrewery.html

Their stuff blows AB away. I just don't want to see anymore huge job losses in this town. Unemployment here is HIGH, like almost as high as Detroit, or Cleveland.

[logosoco]

35. I'm with you...

I don't drink beer of any kind, but I have lived in and around St. Louis my whole life and it is a BIG part of the city. It would be a huge loss not only economically but culturally as well.

[Endangered Specie]

17. Wouldn't it be ironic if all the rednecks boycotted it?

since its now owned by soviet socialist Europe?

[bullwinkle428]

18. AB had all those commercials just a couple of years back

bragging that they were the "All-American" company, compared to Miller, owned by a South African interest...

[onehandle]

22. Ugh. Just don't change European beers.

Big American beers are undrinkable.

[704wipes]

25. Could you all chime in to answer some questions I have? Please

Since so many people here know about fine beer, brewing and hops, give me opinions and answers best you can?

Are hops a FRUIT?

If you were a farmer in the 1920's. You have a camp back in the woods on your farm. In the spring it is a maple sugar camp, making syrup and candy. In the fall,,,, it is an apple cider camp, and you use hops in the operation. You also grow lots of corn and barley on this fine farm.....well are there any solid conjectures you can draw from this? or am I out of bounds suggesting what I might be suggesting?

Were my gramps & great gramps boot leggers? Great Gramps was VERY German. Like Bavarian.

[customerserviceguy]

26. It doesn't take

a lot of space to do some homebrewing, there was ample opportunity for Gramps and Great-Gramps to do something to get through the so-called "Noble Experiment". My hat's off to them, chances are excellent they believed in freedom.

[NutmegYankee]

31. It is not illegal to make your own beer, only distilled liqueurs.

I attend basement parties all summer long trying out the latest brews my co-workers and friends have made.

[JVS]

41. Hops are more of a bud

[Trajan]

27. I've disliked Bud all my life ....

Good riddance

[NutmegYankee]

30. Whatever, I don't drink that crap.

Sam Adams, Long trail, Harpoon, Magic Hat, Cottrell, Sea Dog, Saranac, etc. Plenty of fine beers right here in the New England. :beer: :toast:

Yeah, I know Saranac is actually upstate NY, but it's close enough. The Micro brew phenomenon is the best thing to happen to American beer. Thank God.

[Tesha]

39. Don't forget Smuttynose from Portsmouth, NH!

http://www.smuttynose.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuttynose_Brewing_Company

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smuttynose_Island

[NutmegYankee]

46. Indeed. I couldn't remember them all off the top of my head.

New England is blessed with good beer.

[Lost4words]

36. maybe they will figure a way to make it taste better!

yuck

[Dulcinea]

40. I've boycotted Anheuser Busch ever since they ruined Rolling Rock.

Will InBev move it back to Latrobe where it belongs?

[Marrah_G]

45. Didn't anyone tell them we are going to be Vetoing Beer in the US?