It seems that the Anheuser-Busch brewing company has applied to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau to change the name of Budweiser beer to “America” temporarily, until this fall’s election. Excerpt:
The label change will include replacing “Budweiser” with “America” and adding phrases like “Land of the Free,” “Home of the Brave” and “From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters this land was made for you and me.” Other new cans and bottles will feature a view of the Statue of Liberty’s torch.
“Budweiser has always strived to embody America in a bottle, and we’re honored to salute this great nation where our beer has been passionately brewed for the past 140 years,” said Ricardo Marques, vice president of Budweiser. “We are embarking on what should be the most patriotic summer that this generation has ever seen.”
In all candor, the folks at Anheuser-Busch should instead turn their efforts towards brewing beer that was a little less weak and tasteless.
Funny thing – back in the day, my friends and I considered Budweiser to be “the good stuff.” Living as we did 40 miles or so from LaCrosse, Wisconsin, we regularly drank the cheaper local brew Old Style, and if money was particularly tight we could get Black Label or Rhinelander for $3.99 for a case (24) of longnecks. Any leftover beer could be used for rat poison.
But then we grew up.
The big change for me was being stationed briefly in Germany. There in the homeland of beer, I developed an appreciation for beers with more substance; hoppy, tart pilseners, full-bodied lagers, the wonderful, thick, opaque sweetness of real German hefe-weizens.
There are plenty of good beers brewed elsewhere as well. Mrs. Animal and I recently had cause to spend a month in Japan, and the Sapporo and Kirin breweries make some good beers. Here in the States, Sam Adams Boston Lager is always a good fallback beer. Our own Denver is home to a variety of microbreweries that produce some interesting stuff.
But Budweiser? No thanks. This is one old Animal that will eschew Anheuser-Busch’s canned hosspiss, no matter what they handle they stick on the can. I’d rather relive my first exposure to good German beer:
