Beer

[franceslievens]

Know that when you're "enjoying" your cold pint of Stella, you're giving your money to the Coca Cola Company of alcoholic beverages.

Comments

[simonf.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping Stella can make Budweiser taste better. Mainstream American beer is woeful.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing they're not really aiming for making Bud taste different, but getting Stella everywhere where Bud is.

As I don't like Stella, I never even bothered to drink American beer.

One of the best anecdotes of visiting Canada, must have been us ordering a beer and the lady said: "We've got Stella and Leffe." to which we only could retort "We're from Belgium."

I don't like InBev much. They tried to relocate breweries etc. when the Brazilians first came here. And you don't relocate breweries in a nation that had until recently a local brewery in every town however small it was.

[anyasbuttmonkey.livejournal.com]

Oh totally. Cats piss has nothing on Budweiser!

[nwhyte]

So, why is American beer like making love in a canoe?

Because it's f**king close to water!

[anyasbuttmonkey.livejournal.com]

Heee! Genius :)

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

You're even more from Brussels than I am with that icon.

Though I can see them from my work place. :-p

[anyasbuttmonkey.livejournal.com]

OH NOES!

My social lubrication of absolute choice! I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!

*dies inside*

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Wait, you didn't know this already? If InBev wasn't the largest already before taking over Anheuser-Busch, it was probably the second largest company in the world.

Stella? You should come over here and have your pick of great beers. You'd think less of Stella. ;-)

P. and I have this deal btw that we never ever drink Belgian beers at ridiculous prizes outside Belgium. So in the UK when everyone's enjoying their Stella/Hoegaerden/Whatever, we keep on drinking pints of cider. (Why would I drink Stella or Hoegaerden if I don't bother drinking it over here?)

[anyasbuttmonkey.livejournal.com]

I don't pay much attention to the politics of the drinks (both alcoholic and carbonic), mainly because I get really het up about these things (just ask me about Nestle and why I refuse to buy any of their products!), and if I got involved I'd never drink anything other than water. I can live without Coca Cola but not beer!

P. and I have this deal btw that we never ever drink Belgian beers at ridiculous prizes outside Belgium

Depends where you go over here, Stella's not sold everywhere (damn shame!) and the places that do stock it tend to not charge more than their other ranges, so really you just need a cheap pub. And that's what student discount cards are for ;)

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

Well, that's the thing in Belgium: we still have a lot of small breweries, so you can buy beers that aren't part of the big concerns.

Unfortunately most cafés have (what we call) a brewery contract. I don't know how it works exactly, but fact is they only sell beers from one concern (which also loads them up on soft drinks). For a fact, this means InBev. They still have quite a good range of beers, but for the drinker it means missing out on some really good beers from smaller breweries. Brussels for instance is known for its Gueuze (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gueuze). InBev does have a Gueuze beer with Belle Vue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Vue_Brewery), but it's not as good as Cantillon (http://www.cantillon.be/br/Cantillon.php?lang=3&page=1), a traditional brewery. I think only a couple of highly specialised cafés have Cantillon. Most have Belle Vue. Luckily our supermarket stocks 75cl bottles of it (= the contents of a bottle of wine).

And being pregnant I can't drink any. :-(

P.S.: I found a Wikipedia page that puts all the beers that are part of InBev worldwide in alphabetical order. I'll not link to it.

P.P.S.: They've had some troubles over here when starting to become so big. I hope InBev has learned their lesson.