14 July 2008

Boozy Nationalism

Yglesias says:
Obviously, like all red-blooded Americans I'm outraged by the idea of a Belgian company with the silly name InBev purchasing our beloved Budweiser. Still, wouldn't it be kind of great if the Belgians started turning Budweiser into something more like the, um, vastly superior product they have in Belgium? Just saying. Relatedly, wouldn't it kind of suck to be Claire McCaskill and duty-bound to endorse absurd claims about the quality of mass market American beer?

I will not go so far as to plant my tongue in cheek: this is Good. I can think of absolutely no potential downsides to this transaction, up to and including the (highly unlikely) prospect of Budweiser and all related products being discontinued immediately and replaced in distribution with Leffe (or indeed any of InBev's other lagers).

And, yes - it'd be much nicer (for many reasons) to be a Senator from, say, Oregon or Washington and be able to promote with a straight face both the dramatic superiority of your state's product (made from local hops!) and the thoroughly American (self-starting small businessmen! great products!) nature of the micro-brew movement generally.

1 comment:

Claire said...

So there's a light at the end of the tunnel for the average American beer? Perhaps.