By Michael B. Heaney
Creative Director

"Ah, beer, the cause of and cure for all the world’s problems."
—Homer J. Simpson

It was a bachelor party in St. Louis, Missouri. A weekend long bachelor party designed to focus the attention of the attendants towards things traditionally "male" in western culture, things like strip clubs, casinos, expensive steaks and medically unsound amounts of alcohol.

Take the tour

It was planned by a small group of clever and devoted groomsmen who paid special attention to both their environment and target audience. It was they who first realized the possibility of "Brewery Tour." St. Louis is the birth home of the self proclaimed "King of Beers," Budweiser, just one of many fine beers produced by the people at the Anheuser-Busch Companies, and that city also hosts what appears to be their oldest and primary brewing facility. So the ten of us, well, we took the tour.

A perfect facade? Does it seem realistic? Well, for the record, it worked and allowed Michael Heaney, the Pasquinade’s least covert journalist to infiltrate the headquarters of the world’s most prominent beer undetected. The search was on, the secret behind the success of "Budweiser."

What’s your favorite beer? Mine, personally, is Rogue’s Shakespeare Stout, a stout’s stout. I’ve heard a thousand answers to this question, but the word "Budweiser" have never once caused my tympanum to tremor. And yet, for all the hype, it is the king of beers, at least sales-wise. World-wide, it lays waste to all competition. So I’ll admit that as I set foot into the compound, I had espionage on the brain. I’d ferret out the secret methods that had millions the world over sucking down that watery crap no matter the cost!

It’s no good pretending. The sad fact is that the front lobby of the public building of the compound was really the most interesting part of the entire tour. Let’s face it, I’m a romantic and a hopeless optimist, the sort of person born to a destiny of almost constant disappointment. I blame the movie "Wayne’s World" for this particular deviation of my expectations from actual possibility. Because of that film, I entertained delusions of myself dancing merrily among an endless tangle of pistons, pulleys, steam machines, robot arms and conveyor belts laden with various beer products all spinning in a subtly choreographed ballet celebrating the brew and my inclusion into its mysteries. Of course, nothing remotely like this occurred.

The lobby wasn’t actually part of the tour. It was where you waited for the tour, but it had all the really cool stuff. The Budweiser stock car, glass display cases showing off their many labels, their world wide influence, aspects of the history of both the company and beer in general, a museum-like wall pictorial on ‘how Budweiser is brewed’ and so on. True aficionados or people with too much money and too little sense could be taken advantage of in the large gift shop which sold shirts, caps, skimpy bathing suits, inflatable bottles, thermoses and giant fake rubber kegs [but no beer], all with the logos of Busch, Bud and similar beers. It was also the most educational, and I learned everything from how the company started to what it supposedly did during its prohibition years. But it was just the surface stuff, the propaganda. The secrets remained buried, underground, away from the prying eyes of competitors and journalists.

The tour began with a young blonde woman taking hold of a microphone and attempted to exact control over our tour group. I would have none of it. She sickened me, with her microphone and her attempts to rouse our spirits and her leading questions that always had the same correct answer: "Budweiser." She believed, like so many do, that once she had control of a microphone connected to a live amp, that everyone else would blindly obey her every command [like they so often do]. "Dance for me! Dance, you peons, for I have a microphone and you do not, so when I say dance, you will dance, oh yes!" And the tour got underway. The point, of course, is to attempt to brainwash any spies that may have made it past the lure of cheap plastic products.

The first 20% or so of the tour was devoted to the horses and their stables. I was unaware that Busch was associated with horses outside of the flavor, so obviously I learned something. They keep them in a rather small if ornate stable with a shiny red carriage and a minimum pasture outside, near the river front in St. Louis. The horses, Clydesdales, were touted as ‘over a century of tradition’ with the company, but unfortunately another plaque listed the introduction of the horses as occurring shortly after prohibition ended. One of our party was foolish enough to point out this obvious discrepancy, thus tipping our hand. They were on to us, now. We would be watched.

So much of the tour, in fact, was centered around the horses that for a time I suspected that we may have the secret of Budweiser being openly displayed, cleverly "hidden in plain sigh" as the old line goes. "Horses....of course," I thought to myself, and even now I look at my stacks of scribblings trying to determine exactly where the horses fit with embarrassment.

The worst part of the tour is that most of it involved being led to buildings where we were then shown videos. I ask you, what the hell is the point of being guided to buildings in a complex only to watch a video production about what goes on there? I was honestly offended. I could have watched videos at home. The reason, obviously, is that these buildings were key to the secret of Bud’s appeal, and the films were nothing more than a cheap mask, a cover up of what REALLY went on. What was it? Mind control drugs? Voodoo magic? At this point I was chewing my own lip off in frustration and anticipation.

There were a few brief forays into the guts of the brewery, which were fascinating, but far from being the hands on experience portrayed in Wayne’s World, it invoked a very isolated feeling, herded in crowded groups through carefully marked walkways and worst of all, in two of the three places we went, there was an absolute ban on photography. One room was nothing but giant fermenting tanks [tanks in which beer fermented, not tanks that were enjoying the fermenting process themselves], but NOOO, we couldn’t take photos of them, god forbid some other national brewing chain find out! "They put their beer in TANKS? So THAT’S how they achieve that cheap, bland flavor!" [I tried to catch a snapshot from the side while we walked past, but my espionage skills are, well, as you can see, they suck.]

The best part of the tour were the actual brewing vats. This massive room was full of all the pipes and cranks you could want, not to mention barrel upon barrel of hops, the brewers delight! To me, the smell of hops being slowly boiled ranks right up with the smell of garlic and butter cooking. It had a good beer smell.

During the whole procedure, I came across the first clue as to the true nature of the king of beers. Rice. If anyone has ever tasted any of the more popular Japanese imported beers, they may have noticed a small similarity between them and good ol’ Bud. The reason seems clear to me now. The grain they ferment… is rice. If you didn’t know before, buy a can and take a taste. You’ll realize it right away. During the video that explained the detailed process involved in brewing the beer, the tour guide put forth the notion that it was this clever process that had made Bud the most popular of all beers, but I knew this was horse piss. I mean, first of all, what kind of company won’t let you take photos of their big metal tanks but will tell you the "secret" of the success of the beer during a promo video? A company that is LYING TO YOU, that’s what kind. Rice is not the secret! Or was it? Read on!

The packaging plant was another media free zone. Even so it was still one of the most enjoyable parts of the tour. Why? The conveyer belts. Lets face it, I love conveyer belts. I love them even more when they’re whirring at full speed. Even better is when they’re loaded with beer. It was fascinating to watch the strange little machines fold the twelve pack cardboard boxes up around the cans faster than the eye could see. But we couldn’t take any pictures, because god knows that if anyone working for, say, Red Dog were to get their hands on a sharp, clear photo of a conveyer belt, well, the king would be dead.

A couple of fascinating little facts about their packaging. First of all, apparently, Bud doesn’t waste a lot of time with storage. Despite having a shelf life on par with canned dog food, almost all Bud produced is immediately shipped out to various destinations, and doesn’t stay on the shelves long. The facility is in a daily rush to keep up with consumption. Another interesting fact is that according to their masters of propaganda, Anheuser-Busch have a very effective aluminum recycling program which actually recycles more aluminum than they use to produce their cans. Could charitable work and/or above average efficiency possibly inspire the world population to favor a beer?

We also learned a little bit about the history of the company during prohibition, during which they marketed products like ice cream, sodas and bakers’ yeast. Of course, once prohibition ended, it was right back to beer, which kinda makes you wonder. I mean, seriously, does anyone believe that they really stopped manufacturing beer while it was "illegal?"

The final leg of the tour was back to the public building and into the cafeteria where we were drawn from tap two beers of our choice from a selection of around eight [and given salted pretzels, which seems kind of pointless since they wouldn’t let us have more than two beers, but I guess it’s traditional at this point]. I had Amber Bock, which I know I like and tried a brand I’d never heard of, Kilyarnies, what appears to me an obvious attempt to compete with the popular Killian’s Irish Red Lager. And that’s when the gears began turning. Both were, though not on par with real masterpieces like Rogue’s Shakespeare, still fairly good beers, far superior to the likes of Busch or especially Budweiser, the king of beers. But how? It made no sense that Anheuser-Busch’s decent beers would be light weights on the world market while the dribble from the ends of their, well, you get the idea, that CRAP was the best selling beer in the world. They were all made by the same people. And yet the obviously inferior beer had risen to the top. It didn’t add up. Or did it?!

The answer, like all answers, seems so obvious once you know it. The popularity of Budweiser, despite the claims of overeager Anheuser-Busch sales reps, had nothing to do with the traditional brewing process or the secrets of using large tanks. It clicked for me while I was still thinking about the rice. "Why rice..." I wondered. It doesn’t have much flavor or body, and the flavor it does have is kinda nasty. But wait, rice does have one fine quality, especially around places like Mississippi River local farm land. It’s cheap! And that’s when everything fell into place. Budweiser is the king of beers because it IS crap, and thus can be sold at crap prices! Think about it, Bud sells at often about half the cost of a beer worth tasting! And it only gets you half as drunk, so you often feel the need to buy more!

The big mistake was announcing this revelation during the tour. In seconds, the room had gone silent and the tour guide was on her little ear mic calling in a 20-24. God, what a blunder. Guards wearing beer hats and wielding inflatable bud bats had struck, pummeling the groom senseless. They confiscated the cameras [fortunately, I’d already sent the mini disk ahead via carrier pigeon] and we were forcibly ejected from the premises. Still, I’d had what I’d come for, two free beers and a glimpse into the dark underbelly of the crap beer industry. Wiser and more intoxicated, I left a better man for it.

Let Michael B. Heaney know what you think. Send an e-mail.

Read other stories from Michael B. Heaney.