It might, however, increase the urination problem.

Didn't we learn anything from the Treaty of Versailles? You can't force the Germans to sign punitive covenants and not pay for it down the road.

Ugh. Bud is Gresham's law applied to "beer". Rice! They put rice in it!

Come the revolution Three Floyds will be THE American brewery and anyone associated with Anheuser-Busch will be in Gitmo with the jihadis.

Three cans Bud = One large headache.

If you go back and look at the history of beer in the U.S., the Busch family's major coup wasn't in the brew as much as it was in the development of refridgerated rail cars in the last two decades of the 19th Century, which allowed them to ship their beer further than anyone else.

(And while I don't really care what soccer fans are stuck drinking -- if the Eurobrewers want to be at the World Cup table, they need to pony up the promotional bucks to FIFA -- the news on Friday that Anheuser-Busch has bought Rolling Rock left me a little miffed.)

Something need to be done to stop soccer's peculiar brand of hooliganism

Their mistake. They should have included that the "official beer" had to qualifiy as "beer" in the contracts. Add that clause, and the Bud problem goes away.

Or was it a mistake? Are they just showing how greedy they are? What if the Zima folks or the Mike's Hard Kool-Aid pushers had offered even greater amount to be the "official beer"? Maybe what's neede is a list of liquids which don't qualify as "official beer" to metric football officials before the '010 bidding begins.

Maybe what's neede is a list of liquids which don't qualify as "official beer"

Budweiser
Miller
Coors
Pabst Blue Ribbon
Old Milwaukee

What're you drinking, neighbor?

Heineken.

Heineken?

F#$k that sh%@!

PABST BLUE RIBBON!!!

I remember my days as a beer snob. Tipping a glass of every new and fashionable micro-brew that came along and all the while deriding AB products as "p*ss" or "near-beers". I've matured now, and realize that beer snobbery is, like most snobbery, an outgrowth of one's own insecurity and a desire to be seen by one's peers as have superior taste.

The German purity laws were designed to protect small German breweries from competition with foreign produced beers. The fact is that most German beers taste like stale p*ss to Americans, and a significant number of Germans must agree since import beers are seeing double digit growth rates in Germany.

Honestly, I don't care to drink Budweiser or Bud Light with any regularity, but AB's beers are brewed for the American palate and when served ice cold, they are damn tasty. Despite that though, I much prefer Boulevard hefeweizen - a tastier and better crafted beer than most - when I drink domestic. When I drink imports I prefer Bass or Newcastle.

Robert: Exactly. Why do they think we drink it ice cold, anyway? Numbs the tongue.

Something happened to Newcastle in the last couple of years. It has gone weak. Our local Summit Brewery makes a number of consistantly good beers; I get an 8 gallon keg of their IPA for my fourth of July party every year. And I've always liked Leinenkugel's when you need a cold sixpack for a hot weekend.

The problem with a lot of commodity products (and I imagine beer is no exception) is that once the brand gets market share, the accountants want to "PIP" the brand (i.e. profitability improvement plan--increase the margins by reducing cost). So you get more rice and less hops.

So it's not just me then -- had thought there was something wrong with Newcastle lately. I'd put it down to galloping alchoholism. What a relief...