A-B deal. How do we feel about THEIR new Belgian Overlords?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25663923//


Well, what do we think?

does this mean that bud will now be brewed with real hops?

eriktlupus said:

does this mean that bud will now be brewed with real hops?

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Not likely while they can still get their hands on "Soilent Green!"




I could really care less about AB specifically, but I'm not so happy about the massive amount of American real estate and busnesses being bought up overseas in general.

Holy crap! I never thought it would happen. It might be a good thing...but I can't quite decide right now. I think a lot of proud Americans (of the "I only buy American-made products" ilk) might be a little upset over it. I'm not going to lose any sleep.

I made this awhile ago in response to the really boring "keep budweiser American" website...and cause I was bored....not 'cause I was particularly attached to the outcome...(call it Irony, OK?)



It will be interesting...Doesn't inbev have a corporate history of slashing the cost in breweries that they acquire, including changing the recipes to save money...THink they will dare do that to the big b?

(obligatory sarcastic bud bashing joke) and can they make it even more tasteless and watered down than it already is?

Seriously, how do people think they will run the company?...Will it be a highly independent subsidiary of Inbev, with little or no oversight by outsiders and just pump capital into Inbev coffers with little or no changes to AB side of things or will it be a bought out brand totally controlled by Belgium?

Revvy said:

...changing the recipes to save money...Think they will dare do that to the big b?

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Unless they are extremely stupid or their intent was to crush AB from the start, they won't change a thing about the recipe(s).

...remember "New Coke?"

This Bud's for EU.

Revvy said:

Seriously, how do people think they will run the company?...Will it be a highly independent subsidiary of Inbev, with little or no oversight by outsiders and just pump capital into Inbev coffers with little or no changes to AB side of things or will it be a bought out brand totally controlled by Belgium?

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They'll be some cost-cutting, particularly in marketing (so maybe only 5 Super Bowl commercials instead of 10). And I'd imagine some cuts on the operations front as well, though nothing so drastic as shuttering plants or moving production.

My biggest concern is that the combined company will use its size (even more than A-B does now) to muscle craft brews out of the distro system, and to lobby for more laws that further protect their control over distro.

I doubt the average Bud drinker will ever know they are now drinking a Euro based beer. My dad won't for sure. Decades long drinkers like him won't be aware of the change.


Other postulations! Will they replace the Clydesdale with a Belgian(German) horse breed?

Does Bud Leicht have a better ring to it?

Cookiebaggs said:

This Bud's for EU.

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MOD EDIT: Threads merged.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Anheuser-Busch reportedly has agreed to be acquired by Belgian brewer InBev for about $52 billion.
The deal being reported by The Wall Street Journal would create the world's largest brewer and put the iconic American beer maker in the hands of the Belgian-based company behind Stella Artois and Beck's beers.

The newspaper cited anonymous sources who said Anheuser-Busch-InBev would be the new company's name and Anheuser would have two seats on the company board.

Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. did not return messages seeking comment Sunday evening.

The newspaper said the deal was for $70 a share. That's a $5 increase over the offer Anheuser-Busch rejected in June.

I think this is going to cause some major poop. There are so many 'mericans that are anti-whatever right now. There will no doubt be a bunch of rumors about changed formulas, which i doubt would ever happen as mentioned above. But if I owned Busch, Miller, Coors I would be throwing a party right now, a party with homebrew... lots of belgiums!

eschatz said:

I think this is going to cause some major poop. There are so many 'mericans that are anti-whatever right now. There will no doubt be a bunch of rumors about changed formulas, which i doubt would ever happen as mentioned above. But if I owned Busch, Miller, Coors I would be throwing a party right now, a party with homebrew... lots of belgiums!

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Busch is an A-B brand, so if you owned that, you'd be selling out to InBev for $70 a share...

And FWIW, Miller and Coors are the same company now.

Jesus, what the hell is going on... ok, i'm having a party anyways. what do i know?

The distribution network thing scares the bajeezus out of me.

The time is now to to convince your brother-in-law, your uncle, your retired neighbor and those twins...

Buy Craft Beer!

Viva la Beervolution!

Maybe they'll start serving REAL BEER at "InBev Gardens"!!!:rockin:

Does this mean that Bud will now be a "heavy import?"

*hahahahaha*

From what I have heard Inbev operates more like a Brazilian company than it does like a Belgian one. Any cost cutting they do will actually add taste and color to Bud. Now the only truly American brewers are the Micro brews. This could mean a huge boost in craft-brew sales if inbevbud doesn't put all of its effort into crushing the craft-brew production/distribution network.

Sounds like a perfect marketing opportunity for the craft brewers of America.

I don't think it's possible to stop the growing popularity of craft brews. We (America) simply spent too long without any beer choices to give them up now.

I don't reall care what happens to InBev's Busch but I am curious about the brand name.

IIRC, there has been longstanding court battles over the name Budweiser. I think it's been said that historically Budvaroriginally pioneered the name but A-B had the stronger foreamrs to win the rights to use it.

My point is, I wonder if the German influence will cause that to change.

I doubt it.

I'm indifferent on this topic. I don't really see it having a huge impact on beer in this country. If anything, it's going to make Bud and Bud Light even bigger brands in the global market.

Aside from Hoegaarden and Leffe, most of what InBev makes is in the Bud/Bud Light mold, so it's not going to bring any better beers my way.

Well, it was a good deal for the American stockholders who received above market price for their shares and can now reinvest that money in other companies. It will be good for the business since they can generate some new operational efficiencies and potentially use the money saved for new investment, which is always good (though in the global economy sense and not the US economy sense).

On the other hand, it is probably going to result in more Americans losing their jobs, which is always bad, and it may affect US and State tax revenues.

So I'm kind of up in the air about it. I'm not a huge protectionist by any means so the fact that it's a European company doesn't bother me too much, but I am pretty concerned about the job loses that could result.

For all the talk about Inbev's cost-cutting and the potential loss of A-B jobs here in the US, I found this interesting



InBev has almost 3x the employees of A-B, but produces only ~50% more beer?

Bike N Brew said:

For all the talk about Inbev's cost-cutting and the potential loss of A-B jobs here in the US, I found this interesting

View attachment 6495

InBev has almost 3x the employees of A-B, but produces only ~50% more beer?

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Funny, they use Rolling Rock as a A-B "brand" when in fact A-B just bought it from In-Bev two years ago.

I dunno, shouldn't change much for me

I doubt it will change much. IMHO, they are buying Bud for their US market share, not because they admire the product. I doubt they would change the Bud product in any signifigant way for fear of losing revenue. If anything they'll probably pick up on some of Bud's manufacturing efficiencies (as outlined in post 24).

blacklab said:

I doubt it will change much. IMHO, they are buying Bud for their US market share, not because they admire the product. I doubt they would change the Bud product in any signifigant way for fear of losing revenue. If anything they'll probably pick up on some of Bud's manufacturing efficiencies (as outlined in post 24).

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You have to remember that InBev is mostly a holding company of smaller companies and breweries. The more little companies, the more duplication of jobs.

A-B has the mega brewer thing going for them, economies of scale and whatnot.

Just an added thing that I came across in my daily sports-blog-crawl: Kissing Suzy Kolber
Just something from an outsiders perspective that is pretty funny.

Parker36 said:

Just an added thing that I came across in my daily sports-blog-crawl: Kissing Suzy Kolber
Just something from an outsiders perspective that is pretty funny.

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That was hillarious....I through my back out laughing...ow..

The buck stops here, you Brussels-strolling freaks. I’m onto your game. You may take our horrible, mass-produced beer. But we will NEVER stop defacing your prized waffles with fried chicken. Take your Belgian culture and shove it up you daemon butt. Because the US of A doesn’t back down from a fight. Especially one from small, helpless countries that can’t defend themselves.

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Yahoo poll:

Would you stop drinking Budweiser if a Belgian company owned it?

Yes: 20% 33229 votes
No: 25% 41799 votes
I don't drink Budweiser: 55% 90126 votes

Total Votes: 165154

homebrewer_99 said:

Would you stop drinking Budweiser if a Belgian company owned it?

Yes: 20% 33229 votes

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Guess they're all switching to American micros, huh? Or is the MillerCoors ownership (SABMiller is based on London, MolsonCoors in Canada) American enough for them?

hmmm...
Sam Adams is the biggest American brewery now. I wonder if we will start seeing that on their commercials now

I hadn't thought of that! I do like Sam Adams, maybe for sentimental reasons... it was the first beer I ever tasted that I actually LIKED the taste of. One would think from a marketing standpoint that this would be the time the bang the "Made and Owned by Americans!!!!" gong loudly. Much as I despise stupid jingoism, if I owned Sam's I'd definitely be pushing for that kind of an ad campaign. Stupid people's money is just as good as educated people's, and stupid people have been mostly buying Bud.

You know, it might be time that all of the HBT members just quit their days jobs and banded together in the middle of the US and started HBT Brewery!!!

Enough work and effort would make it the largest brewery in the US.

Might be a lot of arguing but hey that would be fun too

It doesn't sit well with me, but just because I am from STL. I have heard the mumbo jumbo for the last several weeks about if it goes through they aren't going to change anything, they aren't going to move the brewery....yada yada yada; and hopefully they don't. However, I don't trust these fools as far as I could throw em. They have already announced that they are going to be cutting 50% more jobs than AB had already planned. AB was going to cut a billion dollars of expenses, InBev says they want to cut 1.5 billion.

I think that is just the start.

It could end up being a good thing, as some have mentioned, even though a foreign brewery bought the company, the majority of the stockholders were Americans and got a very good deal on their stock that will hopefully be re-invested back into our economy. That is good. If InBev keeps the American Breweries open while expanding distribution, that would be good. but like I said, I don't trust em. I think it is going to be bad for STL when it is all said and done.

What I want to know is how much is it going to cost to paint all of those trucks? Every Budweiser truck I have ever seen has the "American Owned" stamp of approval on it somewhere.

I think that it's telling that they went from not on my watch at 60 and rolled at 70.

That tells me that any cutbacks by In-Bev and protect America has a price at 10 per share with these guys. Job cuts were coming. Debatable as to whether thay would be as deep. I guess it depends on how much you believe the former owners just because they were Americans.

Listen, if you're worried about the InBev takeover solely because of job cuts in the St. Louis area, lemme tell you about the plight of the buggy whip manufacturers. Them dang automobiles came along and put em all outta business, they had to lay off EVERY SINGLE employee! Now that's just not right.

Ban cars! Get the buggy whip makers back their jobs!

Adolphus Bush is rolling over in his grave.

BTW Famous last words I heard were that InBev was not going to touch AB's North
American operations.

Why would he care? The beer his company is now brewing isn't the same as what he brewed.

In fact, are any homebrewers really upset over this? I just don't see the downside. Not that there's an upside, either, which is why I'm completely ambivalent about it.

The only potential upside was mentioned earlier; ie Bud drinkers now switching to better beers because they're not going to drink a "foreign-owned" brew. A silly attitude, of course, but I don't see that happening anyway; they'll just switch to some other swill, or not switch at all despite all their lamenting over this takeover.