Acetio | Blogma

As of today (November 18 2008), Belgian InBev has completed its takeover of Anheuser-Busch (A-B), one of the oldest and most iconic American brands, becoming the largest brewer and fifth-largest "consumer-products" company on the world.

This has resulted in a windfall for Senator John McCain's wife, Cindy.

The Anheuser-Busch name will not disappear; the new company name will in fact be Anheuser-Busch InBev.

The traditional A-B brands, including Budweiser and Michelob will join solid import brands including Stella Artois and Hoegaarden, along with more obscure brands such as the Argentine Quilmes and the Belgian Jupiler.

Although the constitutional prohibition against the sale of alcohol was repealed in 1933, it was nearly four decades before high-quality beer existed for most Americans, and another before it was commonplace. In the 1970s states began loosening restrictions on home-brewing, encouraging thousands to try the craft in their garages and basements. Some pioneers began selling their "microbrews" (Sierra Nevada in 1979, Sam Adams in 1985) to drinkers who were tired and embarassed of the mild pilsner-style lagers put out by A-B and Miller and Coors (now MillerCoors)

Now, it seems that just about every town has a small brewery in the area, and people are used to the taste of local beer.

There is one thing about local brew though. It is much easier to brew ale than lager, and craft brewers tend to learn their craft by making ales instead of lagers, and continue making ales even after becoming more mainstream. I imagine most Americans had never tasted ale before Sierra Nevada re-introduced it to this continent.

Ale is now commonplace in most bars, and although A-B is slower to innovate when compared to a small craft brewer, they haven't been snoozing, and have introduced a few "microbrew"-style beers, the development of which pre-dates the InBev deal.

I decided to try two of them, just to see whether the biggest of the macrobrewer still had what it took to make Milwaukee famous.

The first I tried was Budweiser American Ale. Beer Advocate has much more to say about it, but overall I found it much better than I had expected.

A-B did their research, and I found B.A.A. to be quite similar to many of the microbrew pale ales I've tried. Good fruity, hoppy aroma with enough bitterness in the taste. It was a bit too malty for me, and the third one left an aftertaste, but the fact that I got to three says a lot.

The problem with mass-production is that uniformity is valued over quality; it is more important for a product to be uniform in quality than to be good. This is partly why foodies have a reflexive dislike of frozen, pre-packaged foods, and Budweiser, although they call themselves the King of Beers, is really the McDonald's of beers.

The second ale I tried was Michelob Pale Ale (just as pilsner is essentially a lager with light-roasted barley, a pale ale is essentially an ale with [typically] light-roasted barley and lots of hops). It was pretty much what I expected an Anheuser-Busch microbrew wannabe to taste like, which is to say, kind of like Bud, but less sweet.

It actually was not a good beer; it was not at all like a craft ale on draft, or a craft ale of any kind. I imagine it's difficult trying to sell a relatively esoteric taste to a mass market, and the Michelob seems like a compromise between good pale ales and the traditional American palette. It reminded me of Thai food or Indian food in this country. Although you can find the good stuff in some cities, most of what you get is much less spicy and flavorful than the authentic versions of the same dishes. The one advantage of the Michelob was that it was very dry, a rare quality in macrobrews.

So, the Budweiser American Ale at least was not as bad as what I expected. However, it still was not exceptional, and when I get a beer I'll want it to be exceptional, eg: Bombardier which is one of my favorites.

But I would drink it (the Bud) again - if there was nothing else but Bud, Coors, etc.

I may be in the minority, though. Every single beer I've tried from a country outside the U.S. England, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, or Germany has been the same boring, piss-yellow stuff that we had to drink 20 years ago. (The one exception may be Corona)