Anheuser-Busch Approves Takeover by InBev

"That "watery consistency and lack of taste" has kept Bud and Bud Light as the top beer brands for many years, so apparently people don't seem to mind."

It's advertising. Bud products probably have the highest brand awareness of any beers. Good brews that don't have the marketing budget can't get noticed, not to mention the fact that big brewers like AB have clout to influence what retailers carry.

Just because something is number 1 or 2 in sales doesn't mean it's the best product of its kind on the market.

Maybe U.S. beer drinkers who want an American brew will check out other brews like Yeungling (still family owned).

I didn't say that Bud and Bud Light were the best...I just said that people don't mind the "watered-down" taste. There are lots of other beers that are much better, but many of them are also much more costly. Yeungling is an excellent beer, but it's not considered a direct competitor to the Bud brand. Yeungling is considered to be in competition with the Michelob brand. The higher-end brands are Michelob, Yeungling, Sam Adams...the imports are Foster's, Corona, Heineken, Beck's...the low-end are Busch, Natural, Icehouse, Milwuakee's Best...then you have the flagship brands like Bud, Miller, and Coors.

Anyway...in the beer business, they don't market a low-end brand like Busch against a high-end brand like Yeungling. They don't market a flagship brand like Miller against an import like Corona. Bud and Bud Light have been at the top of their category, but also at the top altogether. Sure, it has a lot to do with marketing, but it also has a lot to do with what you get for your dollar. At their price range, it's one of the best beers you can get.

Oh, well...I haven't really had much beer lately. I'm gradually moving toward "hard liquor" - when I rarely get that chance to drink, that is.

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Well, I think a lot of people "don't mind" watery beers like Bud because they don't really have much experience drinking other beers. To a large extent, people buy what other people are buying, they buy what's popular.

Miller Lite used to be the bestselling beer in the U.S. Did drinkers switch to Bud Light because they like the taste better, or because AB had more effective marketing? I think it's the latter. Miller had all the attention (and market-leading) when it was running its famous ad campaigns, like the Tastes Great/Less Filling series. To AB's credit, they out-marketed Miller. I don't know that either company's products are significantly different in taste than they were when the sales positions were reversed.

AB also has the best marketing/sales/distributor network in the business, they can keep close tabs on sales of their products and competitors and quickly make adjustments.

Bud tastes like weasel pee-pee to me. The triumph of marketing dollars over taste! For a cheap beer, I'll take Pabst Blue Ribbon any day. Or Piels, if I want that old-Chicago vibe.

For real cheap, there's always Milwaukee's Best, which actually got a good rating on Consumer Reports' taste test a few years back.

Have you actually tasted weasel piss? Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I pretty much agree with you, though. Last time I had a Bud was at the St. Louis Zoo a couple of years ago and it was pretty weak.

I've had Milwaukee's Best; it's not too bad considering it's dirt cheap.

Well, I haven't really had occasion to drink it; I'm using a bit of poetic license.

I think one of the worst beers I ever had was back in the '80s when Schlitz reformulated its recipe with corn syrup (it was cheaper to use)... that was awful. I think a weasel would be ashamed to have that drek dribbling from his bladder.

... EVERTHING ELSE is weasel-piss and chicken!

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That should be some politician's campaign promise!

In fact, were it not for the prohibitionary upbringing of many Americans, "a Bud or a Coke?" would commonly echo from most drinking-hosts halls.

Uncle MythMan---His Mission? http://www.xomba.com/the_new_mythman_plan ----------P.S. Heavenly HotGirl33705 knows that YOU CAN'T MAKE MONEY HERE! but you can let people grant you great wealth! Search around to find out how! ---Write-in Elizabeth Kucinich!

Good to keep Bud and Coke an either/or proposition... I definitely would not want a Bud AND a Coke.

On a somewhat related note, when I was in Guatemala a few years ago some locals I was visiting drank tomato juice in their beer. Maybe a nod to the virgin-born blood or something? Or just mixing what they happened to have on hand (a kind of "love the one you're with" approach to drinking).

Sometimes when a company gets taken over by a bigger company, the product quality suffers. Though in the case of Bud and Bud Light, I don't see how they could taste much worse than they already do.

I ~really want~ to believe that Anheiser-Busch only allowed the take over because they saw that the new company had plans that would inevitably improve the consumers' experience; but I've also been encanted with enough consumer-skepticism to know that the administrators were probably placated with enough money to let their watchful eyes get tired more often than ideal.

Uncle MythMan---His Mission? http://www.xomba.com/the_new_mythman_plan ----------P.S. Heavenly HotGirl33705 knows that YOU CAN'T MAKE MONEY HERE! but you can let people grant you great wealth! Search around to find out how! ---Write-in Elizabeth Kucinich!

Plus one just for that comment. Otherwise I could give a crap. Augie Busch goes for the big pay day - big surprise! What happens to the Theme Parks?