Sixpack Sez

Aug. 14, 2009 | Who makes that beer, you ask? Everyone

DOES IT really matter who makes your beer?

The issue weirdly erupted during last month's great White House Beer Summit. Out of nowhere, even as the nation grappled over pressing issues like health-care reform, news pundits were blathering about the shocking revelation that Bud Light is foreign-owned. "Fox & Friends" host Gretchen Carlson (who looks like a Corona girl to me) flatly declared, for example, "They should be drinking American beer, in my mind."

Naturally, U.S. brewers chimed in and urged the president to serve their red-white-and-blue suds during his sit-down July 30 with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the Cambridge, Mass., cop who had arrested the Harvard professor in his home.

Genesee of Rochester, N.Y., whined, "We just hope the next time the president has a beer, he chooses an American beer, made by American workers and an American-owned brewery like Genesee."

Ho-hum . . . Didn't most of us reject these "Buy American" platitudes 20 years ago when Japan began to squeeze Detroit?

Back then, owning a Honda was considered an act of treason - even if it had been assembled by American workers in Marysville, Ohio. We should have learned that, in a global economy, the genealogy of consumer products is far too complex to sort out with jingoistic talking points.

The provenance of your favorite beer is every bit as thorny.

Bud Light is produced in 12 towns across the country. American workers brew it, package it and deliver it to your local store. Sounds American to me.

However, its parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and its finances are largely controlled by Brazilian bankers.

Does that make Bud (not to mention Michelob, Rolling Rock, Natty Light and the rest of the conglomerate's portfolio) foreign? If yes, what about those handmade craft beers from the Kona, Fordham, Widmer, Red Hook, Goose Island and Old Dominion breweries? Anheuser-Busch has a piece of them all.

So, what's a real, 100 percent American brewery?

Not No. 2 Miller (maker of Miller Lite, Milwaukee's Best and Olde English 800, among others). It's a subsidiary of SABMiller, founded in South Africa and headquartered in London.

Nor No. 3 Coors (maker of Coors Light, Blue Moon, Keystone and more). It's a subsidiary of Molson Coors, headquartered in Canada and Denver.

After them, the line between American and non-American is no clearer.

No. 4, Pabst Brewing, is American-owned - but it doesn't own an actual brewery. It's a "virtual" brewer that holds the rights to dozens of old brand names and hires other companies to package them. Then it funnels its profits to a tax-exempt corporation established by a Polish immigrant.

How about No. 5, Boston Beer? Its bottles are emblazoned with the portrait of patriot Samuel Adams, one of our Founding Fathers who led the revolution against the British crown. There's nothing more American than that, right?

But take a look at Boston Beer's SEC filings: One of its largest shareholders is Barclays of London, headquartered just a short walk from Buckingham Palace. Every time you buy a sixpack of Sam Adams Boston Lager, you're putting money into the pocket of the very banker that helped arm the Redcoats.

The interconnections in the beer world are so complex, you can't even be certain that foreign beer is actually foreign. Take a look at the label on Mackeson XXX: Bottles of the prototypical English stout sold in America are brewed in Cincinnati by Boston Beer.

And what about the beer itself?

Whether it's an ale or lager, the beer you're drinking was inspired by generations of brewers from around the globe. Budweiser - the self-professed "great American lager" - for example, was modeled after a classic pilsner invented in Bohemia. Even its name is Czech.

Moreover, your beer, no matter who makes it, could have been brewed with malt imported from England, flavored with hops grown in Bavaria, bottled on equipment fabricated in Germany, dispensed from a keg made in China, packaged in a case printed in Canada and sold to you by a cashier born in Sri Lanka.

The lesson here: Drink up and find something else to complain about. Beer is not for xenophobes.

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