We toured the Budweiser brewhouse in Fairfield a couple weekends back and I walked away with an enormous appreciation for that crew. I know theyre a conglomerated monster of a company and that the brewers are connected to a monstrous corporation with devious marketers and all, but these brewers take their beer seriously and they do all the same stuff the craft beer industry is doing, all the same stuff I appreciate about the smaller breweries, just on a different scale. The plant is huge on recycling waste and using renewable power. They age Budweiser on beech wood, which is no small task for the volumes they produce, as some poor sap has to rake it all into these huge tanks by hand and then clean it all out afterwards. They naturally carbonate their beer using that "bunging" procedure (just like Anchor, I'll add, who makes a big freaking deal out of it). They proudly use rice to smooth the feel of their beer into what it is. They only brew their beer to order (whatever distributors order, not a drop more) and they take shelf-life seriously (yes, they do, even if distributors and sellers don't, they will buy back old beer). In short, I will certainly speak up the next time a beer nerd tries to tell me Budweiser is mass-produced garbage.
Eh?
Eh?