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St. Louis—In what could be the biggest disaster since Hurricane Katrina, Budweiser—after being sold to Belgian based InBev—has immediately plans to change the formulation for their beer. The change comes to reflect a European style of beer, giving it a more “fruitier and nuttier taste,” a veritable Bud “spritzer.” The beer, known to the common working class man, will now appeal to the most erudite of Americans. The “King Of Beers” will indeed have a flavor made for a king, flushing years of perfection down the toilet.

"European bankers and the dollar holocaust" OK, this article isn't finished yet, but I was thinking like "why not publish what I've written so far beforehand, the topic is a highly important one and people here on Free Republic aren't whiners, sure they'll forgive me for saving this draft for later forum abuse and instead I could go treat my sore European intellect to some Absolut and b-movies". I'm on holiday, actually. The unfinished article (please comment!!): "Personally, I'm not born of banking stock. My forebears here in Sweden (yes, I am, again, trying to write an article in English...

CANBERRA (Reuters Life!) - Australians, long regarded as a nation of beer drinkers rivaled only by the Germans, seem to be turning soft, or sober. After 113 years, the country's biggest selling beer, Victoria Bitter, or VB, is to be produced in a mid-strength version to keep pace with the country's fast-changing beer tastes. VB, with its distinctive green label, has since 1894 been a staple of hard-drinking backyard barbecues, student revels and football games, not to mention healthy overseas exports. Now brewer Foster's has decided for the first time to produce the beer in a weaker yellow-label version with...

A university professor has set aside all the popular opinion by saying that beer is a healthy beverage--if not more healthy--than wine, bringing cheers to all the beer lovers. Charles Bamforth, chairman of the food science department at the University of California at Davis and an Anheuser-Busch endowed professor, told food scientists assembled here Tuesday that beer contains valuable B vitamins, such as B12, folic acid and niacin, as well as antioxidants, such as polyphenols and ferulic acid. Bamforth, author of the book Beer: Health and Nutrition says beer also has soluble fiber, which is good for digestion, and the...

Sonkajarvi, Finland (AHN) - Could you carry your wife 250 meters on your back through an obstacle course? That's what one husband from Estonia did to win his wife's weight in beer, and even set a world record doing it. Sandra Kullas and Margo Uusorg won the race Saturday with a winning time of 56.9 seconds. They were among 40 couples who competed in the annual race. The course included pools and hurdles. The men could run or walk while carrying the women on their backs. The championship was being held for the 11th time and evokes the legend of...

See for example this thread first. More important than ol' Britney Spears Is this list of the 50 worst beers Tho' it is quite a fight The worst ones are "Light"-- So open a Stout and say "Cheers!"

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) crashed his car near the Capitol early Thursday, and a police official said he appeared intoxicated. Kennedy said he had taken sleep medication and a prescription anti-nausea drug that can cause drowsiness. Kennedy, D-R.I., addressed the issue after a spate of news reports. His initial statement said: "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident."'Later, however, he issued a longer statement saying the attending physician for Congress had prescribed Phenergan on Tuesday to treat Kennedy's gastroenteritis.Kennedy said he returned to his Capitol Hill home on Wednesday evening after a final series of votes...

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- A House subcommittee Wednesday approved a bill allowing the sale of stronger beer in South Carolina.

Russian army rescues kegs of beer Russian troops have retrieved 10 tonnes of beer trapped under the Siberian ice after a week-long operation. A lorry carrying the beer was lost while crossing the frozen River Irtysh, near the city of Omsk, about 2,200 kilometres (1400 miles) from Moscow. The driver managed to jump out after the ice gave way, but the lorry and its cargo sank. Six divers, 10 men with electric saws and a tank pulled the beer kegs - but not the truck - to safety. Beer going cheapWith temperatures reaching -27C, the rescue mission was fraught...

MILWAUKEE - The latest fight in the U.S. beer battle is a matter of taste. Miller Brewing Co. says rival Anheuser-Busch has altered Bud Light in the past year to make it more bitter and bubbly, rolling out the claim about Bud Light in national television ads that began airing Friday. The company said data it has collected show Bud Light's bitterness and carbonation rose from last year. Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. called Miller's claims "another marketing ploy" and complained to cable networks that the statements are false. Now, 10 of 32 cable networks contracted to run the commercials have put...

WASHINGTON (CBS) President George W. Bush, ignoring Moscow's objections about his trip to former Soviet republics, said that Russia should treat its neighbors with respect and not fear the rise of new democracies along its borders. Bush on Friday opened a fast-paced four-country, five-day journey to mark the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. The president will meet on Saturday with the leaders of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. For these Baltic countries, the end of World War II did not bring liberation. Instead, they traded Nazi oppression for nearly five decades of Soviet domination. "This is a bittersweet...

Luis Manuel Orama says he just wanted to make a little homemade moonshine for Christmas. But the Lee County Sheriff's Office says a wood-burning fire used in the fermentation process got out of control late Thursday, engulfing the outdoor still and spreading to his detached garage with three vehicles inside. Orama, 52, was charged with second-degree arson and possession of a still to manufacture liquor. He told investigators he was making moonshine for Christmas. Authorities said the fire caused about $50,000 in damages, but no one was hurt. Investigators later found several propane tanks behind the garage and empty jugs,...

A MASSIVE Christmas crackdown on pubs which sell drinkers short has been launched by trading standards officers.Undercover officers will visit bars across the Capital to identify venues selling illegal measures to customers.And for the first time, they will target venues with a known history of selling short measures and also visit pubs outwith the city centre.A recent survey found that nearly a third of the pubs in Edinburgh are dispensing measures which are either short or too large.Six city bars have been reported to the procurator fiscal and face prosecution and fines of up to £5000, while a further eight...

<p>Recently, the King of Beers, a.k.a. Budweiser, has been pushing the notion that new dodgy foreign beers may not be fresh and may therefore be dangerous. The "born on" date imprinted on Bud bottles smells of beer evangelism, an attempt to retain their heartland market - the folks who could imagine seeing John the Baptist every time they pop open a bottle of cheap St. Louis lager.</p>

So here I am in Seattle, America's coffee capital, and the flacks at Starbucks won't even talk to me about the measure on Berkeley's November ballot that would require coffeehouses to sell only Fair Trade, organic or shade-grown coffee. (Fair Trade means the importers paid growers at least $1.26 cents per pound for coffee beans. Shade-grown coffee, the measure explains, "is planted in a shaded, forest-like setting created by a canopy of trees," which provides habitat for native songbirds.) Violators would be subject to a $100 fine, six months behind steel bars or both. Tully's and Seattle's Best Coffee...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. LONDON (Reuters) - British beer lovers have enlisted the support of a Sumerian goddess in their efforts to shake off the masculine image of their favorite tipple. Fed up with the drink's beer bellied image, the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) said on Tuesday it had adopted the goddess Ninkasi -- said to have created a recipe for beer 4,000 years ago -- as patron in a bid to attract more women to the pumps. "We think real British beer is something to be proud of and it should be marketed...

HE LET HIS BEERS DO THE TALKING The best brewers in America are more accomplished than they are famous. Gordon Knight was one of those. Knight, 52, died on Tuesday after his helicopter crashed while he was fighting a fire near Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. He was trying to drop water on hot spots in a 4,400-acre blaze. Knight, flying a 32-year-old French helicopter, radioed in about 6:30 p.m. and calmly reported, "I'm going down," a Forest Service spokeswoman, Ellen Hodges, said. Unless you drank beer along Colorado's Front Range in the 1990s you probably never tasted one...

The beverage is commonly called Many Weed Tea. But its main ingredient is dried cow manure. The mere thought of a tea made from cow chips collected in a pasture might repel those accustomed to reaching for the Robitussin on a drugstore shelf. But in Surles' home county of Lowndes, elsewhere in the Black Belt, and even in Birmingham, people her age and some much younger have consumed the tea by the cupful and claim that it put their colds and fever to flight.