Bud Wiser

 Robert Klein used to do a bit about Budweiser's ad campaign: "This Bud's for anyone who's got a job or goes to school or has a neck." Back in the day, this was an illustration of just how pervasive that particular brand of beer was. As I grew into manhood, I came to understand that this was workingman's beer. One of the dads down the street kept cases stacked in his garage like some people keep firewood. I should pause here to point out that this particular workingman worked for IBM. But, a job's a job and a beer's a beer. 

I can also make mention of the fact that while I used to swill cheap beer (Miller Lite) as a general avocation over a period of years, I did not sully my palate with any of that horrid Budweiser. Growing up in Colorado, I also avoided Coors, in part because of the fascist stigma it held and also because even drunks like me needed to have standards. 

All of this is exposition to the new beer wars. Not the one fought in the eighties about the best tasting lite beer. Not the one being waged between IPAs and pale ales and the rest of the mysteries I missed out on by retiring from the beer game before the turn of the century. I am talking here about what Kid Rock did with a machine gun and four cases of Bud Light. In response to Anheuser Bush to choosing a trans spokesperson, Dylan Mulvaney, he seems to be calling for a boycott of not just the blue cans of Bud Light but all their products. Travis Tritt, the somewhat noted country star, chose to hop on the bigot bandwagon and declared that "I will be deleting all Anheuser-Busch products from my tour hospitality rider. I know many other artists who are doing the same."

That shudder you probably could not detect was the one that wasn't running through the hallways of the Anheuser Busch breweries. It's almost as if they had made a conscious choice to expand their demographic outside of those who listen to Kid Rock and Travis Tritt and decided there was a world outside the knuckle-dragging everyman. Or the myth associated with the knuckle-dragging everyman. They sell Becks and Stella Artois to a planet of thirsty humans. I'm sure losing the Tritt-Rock sliver of their market will impact them, but the rest of the beer-drinking planet will be okay without their anger and fear.

For the record, Miller Brewing did not go under when I stopped swilling their brew, and I don't imagine that this transphobic tantrum will amount to anything but a surge in business for Anheuser Busch. See, they're a big corporation and endeavors like hooking up with the LGBTQ+ community wasn't done on a whim. Bud Light has been associated with the queer beer drinker since 1977 when Coors decided they were going to require all its employees to declare their sexuality via a polygraph test. A burgeoning gay pride movement took them at their word and supported the boycott and adopted Bud as their cheap beer alternative.

So, Kid Rock wants to buy a few cases and show off his mediocre marksmanship? Good for him. Thanks for supporting the cause, Mister Rock.