Happy Friday again, beer fans!
Beer was in the international news this week as Drinkers sue Anheuser-Busch for 'watering down' beer.
Beer drinkers in the US have filed a $5m (£3.3m) lawsuit accusing Anheuser-Busch of watering down its beer.
The lawsuits, filed in Pennsylvania, California and other states, claim consumers have been cheated out of the alcohol content stated on beer labels.
The lawsuits are based on information from former employees at breweries owned by the multinational... the practice began after the American Anheuser-Busch merged with the Belgian-Brazilian InBev in 2008...
"Following the merger, [Anheuser-Busch] vigorously accelerated the deceptive practices, sacrificing the quality products once produced by Anheuser-Busch in order to reduce costs," the lawsuit said.
This isn't the first story about AB InBev cutting corners. The
St Louis Business Journal reported last November AB was making changes to hops and grain, and that was a reply to a
Business Week article discussing complaints from Beck's Beer fans who think the quality has declined since Beck's sold out to InBev (it's now brewed in St Louis not Bremen).
Beer snobs among us will assert that wateriness is a feature in Bud not a bug, and always has been. We might tell jokes involving a canoe. But those InBev beancounters might benefit from looking up what happened to Schlitz when their beancounters went too far.
I'm on my way out to the homebrew club and will check in here later. I'll be drinking whatever my associates bring to share (or one of the club kegs, which I think still includes Hop Stoopid). What are you drinking?