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Does it really matter if Anheuser-Busch is purchased by a Belgium Company? To be honest, if this happens, I doubt it'll affect either myself personally, or the American beer drinking public at large.

A little bit about myself: I'm not a native American citizen. Having only washed up on these shores of late, I can't honestly say I have a taste for American beer in the first place; I find it rather insipid and bland on the whole, like a lager that's been rejected by Heineken as being a little too weak. I'm from England originally, which probably throws my tastes in beer out of the window as far as most Americans are concerned, though. Like the stereotype, I prefer my beer to be a bitter; dark, full bodied, and preferably served cool, not chilled. For real preference I'd take a properly drawn pint of Guinness over a Budweiser any day of the week.

Occasionally, though, especially when it's hot, I do prefer a more chilled, lager-type beer for quenching one's thirst. At this point, I would either be looking for a European lager (Carlsberg, Heineken, or even Stella Artois), or for preference, something Australian. Say what you like about Australian wines (and many people have), they certainly know how to brew their beer. As the advertisement for Castlemaine used to run, I wouldn't give a XXXX for anything else.

To be honest, though, I don't think this is going to make the slightest bit of difference to the products Anheuser-Busch turn out. There might be the potential for a foreign business to purchase the company, but they're exactly that; a business. Before they even consider buying them out, they'll be taking a long look at what makes American beer what it is, and what the public expect from it. They're not about to scrap the brands A-B produce now and import dozens of new, unfamiliar labels; that would be marketing suicide. They're not about to change the processes used to brew their beers dramatically. Some funding perhaps to update the machinery and breweries, but the beer will still be the same beer. It'll still be being brewed in America, by American workers. A quick analogy from my own work experiences: I used to work for a water utility in Britain. They were owned by the French, but were bought out by the Germans. Did this alter the water that was running through the pipes? Not in the least. It was still drawn from local watercourses, still processed and cleaned in exactly the same way. The only dramatic changes to the company were internal management ones.

It's understandable that some Americans might be upset by this potential change. As a whole, they have a natural patriotism that's often admirable. Regardless of who's holding the reins of the company, though, Anheuser-Busch's beers will continue to be an American beer, and a few months after the changeover, people will most likely forget it's ever happened.

And I'll still be keeping my eye out for stores that stock Newcastle Brown Ale.

Learn more about this author, Dave Simmons.
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