The King Of Beers, Bowing to a Belgian Throne?

They can buy our Treasury bonds. They can lay claim to our banks and our over-leveraged office buildings. But can they really take our Budweiser and Michelob? Say it ain't so, Bud.

But it is so, or could be. Anheuser-Busch, which has spent decades reinforcing the idea that drinking its beer is as patriotic as Freedom Fries, is the target of an unsolicited takeover. An unsolicited foreign takeover. By a company headquartered in . . . Belgium.

InBev of Brussels this week began wooing Anheuser-Busch like a particularly obnoxious bar patron. Despite protestations from St. Louis, InBev laid down $46.4 billion (or whatever that comes to in euros) for A-B, which is considering circling the beer wagons to resist.

Leave the complicated financial and political ramifications aside and consider this: Belgium?

When Americans think of Belgium -- if they think of Belgium, which they don't -- they probably envision it as the not-quite-France of Europe. It is famous for its waffles, its chocolate, its Flemish tapestries and, in the 20th century, for being pushed around by invading German armies. Its capital, Brussels, is the capital of the European Union, which is great if you like tariff specialists.

Lately, the very idea of Belgium hasn't even been all that popular in Belgium, what with the Dutch-speaking northern region making noises about breaking away from the French-speaking southern section. If that happens, it's not clear that the world would mourn, or even notice.

It's certainly true that Belgians make some very fine beers. InBev itself makes Beck's and Stella Artois. But there's your problem. Beck's and Stella are upmarket Euro beers that might as well be fine dry sherries, for all the workingman cred they have. They are decidedly not Budweiser or Bud Light, which are average, maybe even sub-average, mass-market beers.

Point is, they're our middling mass-market beers. Bud was the first beer you ever had (and maybe the last). It's the beer floating in the big ice bucket at the neighbor's barbecue. It's the pour down at the bar, in the union hall or at the game. It's familiar, ubiquitous and not hoity-toity. Real men do drink Bud (and then crush the can against their foreheads).

Do the Clydesdales say "Brussels" to you? Does the King of Beers suggest King Leopold II? Will it be the same knowing that even if this Bud's for you, it's coming from a conglomerate in Flanders?

America has already lost a significant part of its flag-waving, everyman beer brands. Miller was sold to a London-based outfit a few years ago, and Coors is partly owned by Molson, which is Canadian.

Now Bud, too? Slide another one down the bar, so we can cry in our beer.