The economic spoiling of an American icon — Budweiser

Alfred Biddlecomb
Published: June 18, 2008

How many six-packs can you get with $46.4 billion?

That’s how much Belgian brewing giant InBev is willing to fork over for every last can, bottle and pony keg of Budweiser, Michelob, and Bud Lite.

There are hostile takeovers and then there are HOSTILE takeovers. I didn’t object when Germany’s Daimler took over Chrysler or when Japanese investors began buying up all the prime real estate in
Hawaii in the 1980s.

But this is serious. This is beer.

I can deal with rising gas prices and a sagging real estate market. The stock market hasn’t done my 401k any favors and I have yet to purchase a toy for my kids that doesn’t say “Made in China.”

With all this gloom and doom I never bought into all this “America’s going to Hell in a hand basket” talk until I read the business section last week. There it was in black and white. The king of beers —
Budweiser — was about to be swallowed by a brewing company from Belgium.

There’s your sign. Our days are numbered.

It’s the nature of our global economy to see the likes of Budweiser at the center of a foreign hostile takeover. I could possibly even stomach such a takeover if the buyer had some “street cred” in
international brewing circles.

When I think European beer giants, Germany, Bavaria or even England and Ireland come to mind. The only American entity in Belgium’s crosshairs should be waffles. I might l’ggo my Eggo if the
Belgians come knocking, but beer’s a little more personal.

A cold can of Bud is what keeps your grilling hand cool during a summer cookout. It’s what cools you off after (or during) a company softball game. Its empty aluminum cans, alone, prop up the recycling
industry.

Now we’re expected to hand over the exclusive Beachwood aging process to a bunch of Belgians? I guess it’s part of a larger trend since many of Budweiser’s domestic competitors have already sold out
to foreign companies.

Miller Beer — the beer that made Milwaukee famous and gave Lavern and Shirley steady employment — merged with a South African brewer six years ago. Suddenly, Belgium’s not looking too bad.

Coors — the contraband cargo that formed the basis for my favorite childhood film “Smokey and the Bandit” — merged with Canada’s Molson. I guess those hosers in Golden, Col., sold oat. Eh?

If the current trend continues, look for Schlitz to partner with Corona and Colt 45 malt liquor will become the property of Guinness. On a side note, American malt liquors can trace their roots to high
alcohol beers brewed by Trappist monks in Belgium. I guess it’s all coming full circle, though I doubt the monks invented the 40-ounce bottle.

To their credit, InBev is promising not to touch the Budweiser label. In fact they want to expand the beer’s international appeal. Does that mean that InBev will change it’s name to InBud?

There was a day when Anheuser-Busch was the hunter. It was the king of beers for a reason. Budweiser was top shelf as Miller and Coors battled for No. 2, while trying to stay above Pabst Blue Ribbon
and Schlitz.

Ironically, it was Anheuser-Busch that began beer consolidation in the U.S. One of the more notable moves was their controversial takeover of Rolling Rock of Latrobe, Pa.

I always pictured Rolling Rock as sort of a Coors (east) using water from the Blue Ridge Mountains instead of the Rockies. In 2006, Anheuser-Bush transferred Rolling Rock’s brewing operations from
Latrobe to Newark, N.J.— a city that glows in the dark in satellite photos.

Anheuser-Busch even went after the smaller craft brewing market when it purchased 49 percent of Old Dominion Brewing in Ashburn (makers of Dominion Lager and Pale Ale).

What comes around, goes around. Anheuser-Busch, with stagnant profits and stock prices, has become the hunted. Its future existence as a family-owned, U.S. company will be determined, not by
American beer drinkers, but by the likes of Warren Buffett and J.P. Morgan.

This merger may go down smooth, but it will leave quite a hangover.

Alfred Biddlecomb is the former Opinion Page editor for the Potomac News and Manassas Journal Messenger. Since he is still a resident of this area and knows quite a few things about life in Virginia,
we have asked him to contribute his thoughts to this page every Tuesday.