It's just about official, Budweiser is selling to Belgium-Brazilian corporation InBev. While it's not my beer of choice, it is a sad day that this once powerful, totally red, white and blue American brand is being sold and gobbled up by foreign investors.
That's business. [link]
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Is Bud popular in other countries?
Im a bit of an ale guy myself but I know lots of people who more or less only drink Bud or Bud Light. At the late, great Duffy's in Denver I mentioned to a bartender that Anhowzswer/Bush (sp) had like 42% of the beer market in the U.S, (a fact I got from the Bud tour in Fort Collins). He said he totally believed it and pointed to each beer at the bar - Bud, Bud light, Fat Tire, Bud... etc.
I'm not too upset. Brazil and Belgium are cool. Got some good drinking traditions, no? Coors went Canadian a couple of years back. Big deal here in Denver.
That said, I grew up looking at cans of Bud. That's what people would drink at an afterwork get-together at the VFW. Don't change the look guys. Thats my advice.
I totally had that poster too.
Oof. Just watched that commercial. I feel like a communist for liking darker beers now. Bastards.
for being the biggest beer producer in the world i've never heard of any of their products. as for Bud, never liked it i'm more of a sam adams, michellob & medalla guy myself.
Well Stella is big but to me, not nearly the powerhouse Bud is/was. And Bud is big in the rest of the world. It's imported mostly everywhere and every country has a bud-tasting rip off too, just to capitalize on the hype. As the US fortunes have declined here and abroad, so has Bud's.
I don't know about Bud's popularity here in Brazil, I know I like it.
As I also like Stella, some ales, some Brazilian craft brands too.
I hope now I can find Bud here more often than I use to, but in the other hand, I also expect them to not mess around with its taste.
I used to drink Sol, a Mexican brand. It was a good and light beer for a sunny day. You could have five bottles in a row, relief the heat of the sun, and still be ready for another five or more. But now they're brewing it here n Brazil, it tastes like old woman's piss. God damn it. No more Sol to me.
And just to illustrate the bigness of Bud, in the Japanese neighborhood here in Sao Paulo, I bought a pack of Budweiser commemorative edition can for the Beijing Olympic Games, brewed in China. The can was not flat round, it was shaped like a 30 (it's a guess) sides polygon. Beautiful painting, and almost the same taste of the original Bud. I can send a picture if you want.
Well, Budweiser isn't even really beer - its made mostly with rice & corn, not barley. It tastes like cr@p, and it astounds me that anyone other than dead broke college students would drink it. Perhaps being owned by a Belgian firm will cause some improvements in quality, but I doubt it. Budweiser's popularity is the result of slick marketing, good distribution, and low price.
Try drinking some real beer, like the product of one of the many fine micro breweries that can be found all over the country - or maybe even some imported Belgian beer - they do make good stuff. Then see if you can still stomach the foul fluid found in a can or bottle ofBud.
I don't think Bud is like crap.
All right, there are lots of better beers. I use to drink Belgians, Germans, British, Dutch, and even the micro breweries that there are here in Brazil.
BUT, I'm not stuck to one kind of beer only. I like BEER, in various ways of brewing, flavors, alcohol levels (except alcohol free)...
If you don't like Bud, OK then. But being brewed with rice and corn instead of barley doesn't make it not a beer, but a different kind. In my opinion.
I blame Bud Lime for all this. That's a dumb idea. Anyone sticking flavors into beer, microbrews included, should be kicked, hard.
I misused a word... for flavor, I wanted to mean the different types of beer, like ale, lager, stout, pilsen, weiss, and so on...
I hate those lime and berries beers too... In some bars and clubs here bartenders use to put a slice of lemon in our bottles... Without asking!
I used to take it off and toss it back in the counter, not saying a word and staring provocatively to the 'motherless-son' who dared to put it into my beer.
A brewery here (famous for how bad their beer tasted) tried to introduce a mix with lemon and tequila... I haven't ate vomit before, but I guess the taste might be the same.
Budweiser is not famous at all in Brazil. We have Inbev's 3 local brands with almost 70% os market share: Skol, Brahma (sold internationally) and Antarctica. The cheaper local brands cover the other 25%... and we have like... 5% of the market, with "premium" brands, where Stella Artois, Heineken and other beers can be put.
Budweiser can be considered a premium brand here, not for its cost, bue mostly people who have already travelled to the US consume it. It tastes very different from other Brazilian beers, and people usually dont like it.
About the other comment above, about Sol, in Brazil, I´d like to mention we still have that "good" Sol the guy mentioned. When Femsa, the mexican groups of Sol announced they were coming to Brazil, they said they would make a different version for Brazil, but I can buy both, the national and imported one (the imported is better, of course!).
So, don´t Panic, Brazilians and Belgiuns are not gonna change Budweiser at all. It is a secular brand, famous worldwide (but not much in Brazil!!), and everything will be OK. Just the money is not gonna go to America anymore.
Anyone recall 'Dry' and 'Ice' beers? Bud Light Ice Dry. They might have actually had that at one point. May still for all I know.
In the recent history, the US companies have been buying many other business around the world, and NOW for a simple question of hurted
BRIDE, the americans begin to criticize ???? That's ridiculous considering the final offer, and mostly because of the fusion's results.
Bud has a bitter taste,
Salve A BRAHMA, a SKOL, BOHEMIA, ORIGINAL e até a ANTARTICA.
Loira Gelada como a nossa não existe!
Eduardo, I'm not criticizing at all. Business is business and this is just a result of the new global economy. If anything the sale of this iconic American beer should be a wake up call to Americans as proof of our seriously diminished place in the world.
Thanks for the comment Matheus. InBev's a smart company, so I would imagine they'll streamline a lot of Bud's fat and waste. make things more efficient and such. And I don't think for a minute they'd change how it's made. Bud will probably always be the biggest beer in the USA and probably stick with it's patriotic bullshit messaging. But no longer will it be American-owned. It should serve as a reality check.
Matheus, even the colorless Sol bottle had its taste altered. I'm only buying it when I see that none of the writings printed in the bottle is in Portuguese and the it has the importer tag. Otherwise, the taste is not the same. Try it. It's being bottled here in Brazil and it's not just like it use to be.
Eduardo, I know we have good beers here in Brazil, but after you drink Colorado, Baden Baden and even Devassa, you'd never say cheers to Skol, Bohemia, Brahma and Antarctica again (Original IS Antarctica...). I do believe you also like Schin... And yes, there are better "cold blonds" than ours. I know what I'm talking about.
I've never liked Budweiser or Bud Light for some reason, though on occasion I will drink one or the other if necessary. Like the time I was in a hole in the wall bar down in the backwoods of Tennessee. I asked the bartender what kinds of beer they had. "We got both kinds, Bud and Bud Light" she snorted back. I bet that type of person is more than a little miffed at this sale.
E - For about 1 semester in college, Icehouse was all the rage among my circle of friends. Not sure if you ever tried it or if its still around, but that was toxic stuff. After an evening of swilling those, someone was guaranteed to be involved in a fight or vandalism of some nature. Kind of like whiskey you could say. Worst hangovers imaginable after that stuff too.
InBev is a publicly traded company, so it's owned by the stockholders who may be in any country I suppose. Not to get too technical though.
Curly, Ive seen Icehouse around though I've never tried it. Sounds like that was a good call.
I read this post with a certain surprise... Why are you americans so angry with this "foreign invasion" while you invade other countries with your products, your "culture", your "democracy" and - the worst of all - with your troops "to bring liberty and democracy to the rest of the world" (speccialy if there's oil there)?
What a hypocrisy...
PS: I'm a brazilian man.
Um Marcus, this post is not about anger what so ever. Why does everybody think it is?
PS - Brazil is really good at futbol. Can we import some of your players here? They don't even have to be your best players. A couple players from your C team would do fine.
I'm Brazilian too, and did not find anger in all the posts about the whole transaction. Maybe disappointment because the almighty powers of the USA are vanishing. But we Brazilians fell bad as well because all of our best football players are going to Europe.
Baierman, we might have the best players, but they aren't working fine together in the National Team. You can pick all you want to take to the USA, I would not mind. If we had a National Team using only players who are actually playing in here, we might do best.
Marcus, the USA's image we have in here is this that you described, but we might as well think of the citizens as individuals, and I prefer to think that not all of them have the same "we are the best, we rule the world" ideas.
Well said Leonardo. Come to Denver and you'll meet plenty of people to enjoy a beer with wherever it comes from. Cheers!
(BTW I had a couple Newcastles tonight. Taste - T.)
I can't travel for now, E, but I'll let you know if I'm going to the USA someday. Then I'm going to have a beer with you.
And also, I don't care where the beer comes from, as long as it tastes good. I have even drank Chinese beer.
Right on brother. I'm the same way. Beer brings people together. That's been my experience.
Leonardo:
While there is not rule, strictly speaking, that defines what can and cannot be called "beer", the German Purity laws require that beer be only made of Barley, Water, and Hops. Anything else is NOT a beer.
I'll be the first to admit that I have had wheat "beer" and honey "beer", and liked them both.
But really - those are "malt beverages" - not beer.
But making "beer" out of rice and corn is, to me, like telling you you're getting steak, and giving you baloney instead.
Thanks for all the comments guys. One of these days we'll organize a YBNBY get together at some NYC watering hole and the beers will be on me if you can make it.
PS - Beer also gives you muscles. And goggles - no matter what country you live in.
OK Daan, I know what you're talking about. I understand you and agree with you that if there's a rule, it may be for something.
But, since we're in an informal discussion, let's not get stuck into the 1516 Bavarian Purity Law, and let's just assume it's all beer since they're bottled and sold as being beer.
I have had some beers that couldn't even been named as bottled piss, but it was written beer in the label.
I've even drank a Chinese one which was made out of bamboo (I just don't know how, because the label was in Chinese)... In the end, it's a beer-like drink.
Better this? Beer-like drink?
Baierman, together with the muscles and the goggles, beer also makes you dance, makes you funny and smarter!
"The German Purity Laws"? You know how that sounds, right?
That's why I prefer using Bavarian... not nice too, but using German it sounds a bit nazi...
Italy was going to make some rule, they might have actually, defining what could be called pizza. One of the rules I think was that it had to be baked in a stone oven. So when I get a 'pizza' from the local place, it's more of a pizza like product. C'est la vie. It goes well with my malt beverages that's for sure.
I also enjoy my pizza-like flour-disc-with-stuff-over with malt beverage... no problem...