by Beertheostorian A

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In our last installment, we referred to In Bev’s bad habits. The most notable is risking quality of beverage product for the quantity of profits. Anheuser Busch may have been guilty of many things, producing an extremely smooth, some may say  almost water like beer product. Mass producing flavor to the point of it losing any sense of character, but one must recognize that they rarely risked the quality and consistency of their product for profits. They recognized that their profits depended upon the consistent quality of their product. They may have diversified into other things, snack foods, amusement parks, etc., but the flavor and quality of their products remained the same1.

InBev has a tradition of cutting back on breweries and brewery staff. When they took over the Boddington’s brewery in Manchester they shut down the brewery and moved production of Boddington’s out of Manchester to Luton. Now the label does not even say, “The Cream of Manchester.” In short they gave away their trademark phrase and certain subtle qualities of the product to save a few bucks by consolidating brewery operations with another brand in a Luton brewery.

When InBev bought out the Latrobe Brewery in Pennsylvania, they shut that down and sold the Rolling Rock label to Anheuser Busch. Anheuser Busch makes a very passable version of Rolling Rock, but the brewery jobs lost in Latrobe, meant other jobs were lost as well for all the people who depended upon the brewery workers for their living. If InBev takes over AB, it comes at a very bad time for the American and world economy. With us in a credit crisis, we need as many jobs as can be maintained as possible.

Anheuser Busch provided good jobs throughout its U. S. Brewery system. This is the problem we face with In Bev buying out Anheuser Busch. Within months of taking over InBev has already announced layoffs and  brewery closures. We anticipated between 10 to 30 % without the economic crash, In Bev is holding back. So far the announcements have indicated just 1400 workers, 6% of the total brewing sections, most of it out of the corporate offices in St. Louis. Yet before the takeover, AB had offered a buy out package, unsuccessfully attempting to stave off the takeover, that shaved 1000 workers through the buy out period that ended in November. Additionally 415 contract workers are getting laid off.  No breweries have been shut down yet, but they still have two very large payments, allegedly $16 billion in total to make over the next year. So far they have only hit the low range of our expectations, but do not be surprised if they go all out and try to sell off a brewery or two or shut some down and sell the equipment.

Such job further losses, if implemented combined with the spin off losses, for lunch counters, truckers, etc., could severely impact the quantity of beer consumed in those regions and even nation-wide. This  creates a lower demand, which will lead to a lower supply or lower production of beer. Therefore, if InBev continues on this path and does not reinstate these positions overall American beer production could drop again, possibly to the point where our craft beers (best) will be insufficient to offset the disparity with Chinese production(most). In short the In Bev takeover of Anheuser Busch represents a potentially serious threat to the United States continued hegemony over the world.

This is why I and my colleagues at the American Preservalest Society2 have joined forces with the American Libeerale Party3 to call on the government to second and preferably third fourth and fifth review the merger between In Bev and AB and hopefully reverse it as an antitrust violation. The PreservAlest Society is also calling for the revival of the House Un-American Activities Committee to investigate whether or not elements of the Anti-Imbeerialist Front4 have in fact infiltrated the SEC, the FTC and other governmental agencies charged with monitoring such transactions. It is our belief that AIF elements have unduly influenced government agencies thereby making this acquisition possible.  Please join APA and ALE in rooting out this un-American threat to our way of life. Call your Congressman and your Senator and insist that they do everything possible to investigate and reverse the In Bev deal with Anheuser Busch and preserve American imbeerialist hegemony.