New York Times columnist calls for Anheuser-Busch boycott
Guy has won two Pulitzer Prize awards…
For now, Pine Ridge’s alcohol problem is matched only by Anheuser-Busch’s greed problem. Brewers market beers with bucolic country scenes, but the image I now associate with Budweiser is of a child with fetal alcohol syndrome. That’s why I’ll pass on a Bud, and I hope you’ll join me.
via New York Times.
Breweries: Anheuser-Busch
I agree with this one. Most all who drink macro brew beer are only drinking it to get good and drunk. They don’t care about they craft that goes into making a beer. Plus, who likes drinking a beer where they substitue barley (THE MAIN INGREDIANT IN BEER FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS) with corn and rice. I mean come on! Stupid macro breweries. I’ll boycott them anyday.
It is clear to me that the big macro brewers only want to encourage mass and vast consumption. The two main marketing tools are to 1) keep beer as cold as possible so one doesn’t recognize that the beer has no taste; and 2) as with Miller’s new pop-top can to encourage one to pour beer faster out of the can. Drinking it faster also means one is less likely to notice the lack of taste.
That being said, a boycott will never happen because there are too many people in this country who simply don’t care.
There is just far too much local for me to be drinking beer that is not even made with close to the same quality of ingredients. Besides, every time i drink bud light, for example,i get extremely sick, where i can drink craft brew all night with abv’s through the roof and never even be as much as hungover. Thats got to tell you something.
You can’t blame personal conscious decisions of consumers on ABInbev. This is just another example of people pointing fingers and not taking accountability for their own decisions/actions; the same as people blaming McDonald’s for becoming unhealthy and obese. The article says itself: “but the tribe has no jurisdiction over Whiteclay because it is just outside the reservation boundary,” blatantly stating that ABInbev is not violating any laws. I am not a fan of ABInbev and do not purchase any of their products (not simply because they’re ABInbev, but because their products are crap), but I will defend their right to practice business as they are in this instance as much as I will the right of protest. ABInbev is doing nothing illegal in this article.
Oh please, get over yourselves. There are plenty of drunks drinking micro brews too. As for taste….that’s why it’s called taste..some people prefer blander beers. Stop being a “beer snob”! I drink a micro brew one day, maybe a macro brew the next. You’re acting like complete idiots
Agreed, John.
This isn’t a case of big brew vs. craft. This is an epidemic. Local businesses, distributors and brewers(liquor also) should simply be asked to do the right thing. Put the wallet away. Stop selling into this one town. Provide assistance for the local people to realize their addiction and prepare them with resources to beat it.
Maybe it’s far past time for the rez to legalize alcohol sales, and start taking the revenues from that to help their own people.
Interesting (sad) vids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZSPEynvdh8
Hmm. So any growing brewery these days isn’t trying to “encourage mass and vast consumption?” I disagree. The anti-establishment attitude against AB products is fueled by an inability to appreciate quality… and… an inability to actually ‘taste.’ Instead, one wishes to be knocked beside the head with phenolics, alkaline harshness, and infections…
As an recovering alcoholic, I can assure you, it doesn’t matter who made the beer or how it tastes. . .
I wonder if the root problem is actually alcoholism, or poverty. I’m not sure if the folks involved here are a poor reservation, or one of those wealthy reservations with casinos or whatever, but, in general, when I hear about regions with high rates of alcohol abuse- Indian reservations, inner cities in major urban areas, etc.- it’s usually areas that are not very financially well off. If people have no hope of a fulfilling life with a house, a wife, children, a car, normal 21st century stuff like cable, internet, computers, cell phones and so forth, and the ability to take a vacation once in a while; they often take to alcohol or substance abuse to try to drink or inject away their misery. The problem isn’t really the booze or the drugs, it’s that we as a country throw people away and don’t give them the opportunity to lead good lives.
90% of a given population don’t just decide to become alcoholics because there’s a liquor store nearby. If that were the case, we’d be a nation of alcoholics. Some people are naturally inclined to be alcoholics, but not at that high of a rate. Instead, it’s got to be circumstances that drive people to this kind of stuff in those sort of numbers. If not poverty, maybe something else. In the case of these Native Americans, I wonder if there isn’t a certain ingrained depression at being dominated on their own lands (And being pushed off the better ones) by a western culture. Even today where we actively try to give them a fair shake, they know what they once had as a people and that they don’t have it now and have no hope of getting it back.
Boycott the New York Times.
Alot of good points made but the main factor in this is that the Native Americans were never exposed to alcohol until the white man graced his shores. Their bodies haven’t had the multitude of years to build up any sort of resistance to it like the white man has. Combine that with poverty and some of what John said and you have your answer.
As far as ABInbev goes, the style American Pilsner has always been made cheaply to be the least offensive to the most people so that they can make big bucks. It must be served as cold as possible because the inferior ingredients (corn and rice) will show badly if it’s not cold enough.
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its easy to blame the brewer rather than the real issue, that being a race hearded onto a reservation to die…pine ridge is a third world country right here in america and it sounds like he has never been there, and if you have you will need a beer after what you have experienced. either way this idea is about as smart as prohibition and will work just as well, and a bunch of people can pat themselves on the back for “making a difference” while missing the root of the real problem. great job!