The King of Beers No More

Webbers Whipping Post

Recently, my wife and I were watching television when, lo and behold, a new Budweiser commercial appeared. If I were a beer drinker, and if I didn’t know the back story on the Budweiser issue, the commercial might have actually induced me to buy Budweiser beer. Some elaboration is in order.

Budweiser has teamed up with the American icon, Harley Davidson, who is celebrating their 120^th anniversary with a limited edition can featuring the logos of both companies. After all, what is more American than Harley Davidson motorcycles?

I used to think that about Budweiser until I shockingly discovered their parent company, Anheuser Busch, is a Belgian company. I have a problem with that as foreign entities are buying our country out from underneath us. I am in favor of a moratorium on foreign sales and putting back some protectionist policies, but that is a rant for another day.

Anyway, with the original blueprints of both brands illustrated on the can, it’s an appealing package, particularly if you’re a macho “he-man” motorcycle enthusiast like me. In full disclosure, I prefer to drink American vodka and when I rode a motorcycle, it was an Indian, made by the American company Polaris. That should make me a Yankee-doodle-dandy.

Methinks macho is just what Budweiser was targeting with their ad. It’s in response to the recent Bud Lite fiasco when an advertising executive, who is now on leave awaiting her canning, thought it a good idea to put a pervert’s face on a Bud Lite can to promote, evidently transgenderism.

Consider the financial hit of Bud Lite and AB. Right now, AB is literally giving away Bud Lite by dropping the price of a case to $15, then offering $15 rebates. They’re doing this because they elected to buy back the beer that isn’t selling from their distributorships and, in my assessment, thought it better to give the beer away rather than pay for it to be hauled back to a warehouse for disposal. No word yet on what that is costing them.

This past week, JP Morgan analysts stated that AB’s US earnings would fall 26% this year. They went on to state that the decline in sales is not expected to recover by the end of fiscal year in October of 2024. Now that’s a butt-kicking.