Did someone say “crab juice”?

And I thought Red Bull was bad enough.

Or, as Jonah Spangenthal-Lee noted, “It can’t be worse than Mountain Dew“.

A hardline Hindu organisation, known for its opposition to “corrupting” Western food imports, is planning to launch a new soft drink made from cow’s urine, often seen as sacred in parts of India.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or National Volunteer Corps, said the bovine beverage is undergoing laboratory tests for the next 2 to 3 months but did not give a specific date for its commercial release.

The flavour is not yet known, but the RSS said the liquid produced by Hinduism’s revered holy cows is being mixed with products such as aloe vera and gooseberry to fight diseases such as diabetes and cancer.

Budweiser takeover bid: That’s what you get for the Clamato venture!

Oh, for …. It’s not even worth it. This blog entry, I mean. Then again, the proposed beer deal is questionable, too. Clearly, InBev’s $46.4 billion takeover bid for Anheuser-Busch is about money and market share. InBev, a product of the 2004 merger of Belgian and Brazilian companies, brings to the table reputable labels including Stella Artois and Bass, as well as the ever-popular Beck’s. Anheuser-Busch, of course, is responsible for that best-selling atrocity known as Budweiser.

The proposal has sent ripples of dismay through Budweiser country. Missouri Governor Matthew R. Blunt called the offer for the St. Louis-based megabrewer “deeply troubling”, and said that he was putting state resources to the task of keeping Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.

There are all sorts of (not quite) dramatic considerations. Anheuser-Busch could make a play for the other half of Grupo Modelo in order to raise the takeover price. The company is ill-suited, compared to other large corporations, to fend off a takeover. A rift may be opening within the Busch family. And InBev chief Carlos Brito has emphasized concessions intended to sweeten the deal, including headquartering in St. Louis and making Budweiser the flagship brand.

This last, of course, might seem a surprising suggestion for a company with reputable names in its stable, but in the end it’s not. This is, after all, an attempt to create the world’s largest brewing company: that Budweiser is a crime against beer is of little concern when the stakes are so high. After all, Anheuser-Busch is iconic, and Budweiser a household name.

And while the takeover, if successful, would mark the end of an American era, it is probably too much to ask that the product quality somehow improve. Budweiser is, after all, a trademark in repugnance. Barring that, however, Carlos Brito could win much affection by publicly terminating, denouncing, and promising to never make such a horrendous mistake as the Budweiser & Clamato venture.

Now that ain’t right ….

I found out from Megan Selig at Slog. I couldn’t just leave it at that. It seemed too much like a joke. While I still don’t know what “chelada” means, apparently Bud Clamato has been around at least since last summer.

It’s not a sign of the Apocalypse, but a strong suggestion that the Devil is real and works for Anheuser-Busch.

Beer heist!

Shawn Pogatchnik reports for the Associated Press:

Irish police were hunting for a beer bandit who stole 450 full kegs from the Guinness brewery – the largest heist ever at Ireland’s largest brewer.

National police said a lone man drove into the brewery – a Dublin landmark and top tourist attraction – on Wednesday and hitched his truck to a fully loaded trailer awaiting delivery to city pubs ….

…. Police said the raider took 180 kegs of Guinness stout, 180 kegs of U.S. lager Budweiser and 90 kegs of Danish beer Carlsberg. Guinness brews both of those foreign brands under license for sale in Ireland ….

…. Each keg holds about 88 British-sized pints, the most common serving size in Ireland, equivalent to 20 ounces each. The total theft involves 39,600 pints with a retail value exceeding $235,000.

What really disturbs me the most is the idea that “Guinness” and “Budweiser” appear in the same sentence, much less are brewed by the same company in Ireland.

While police have not released any details about the suspect—there may not be any details to give—they have suggested that it will be difficult for the thief to sell the stolen beer.

So what we have, apparently, is a stolen trailer full of beer that cannot be sold. Seems to me the suspect should be easy to find on an island approximately the size of South Carolina. (Insert your preferred bad joke here.)