Every now and then, I like to switch it up here at Flyover Country and write more lighthearted and irreverent posts called “Sunday Funday”.
Here’s one of my more popular ones:
In today’s post, I want to introduce you to my cousin. You can call him “Maurice”.
He’s not a space cowboy.
A few years ago, Maurice started searching for a new football team to root for. After decades of mediocrity, “double doinks”, poor draft decisions (Mitch Trubisky, anyone?), and outright failures on and off the gridiron, the Chicago Bears just weren’t doing it for him anymore.
Over the course of several months, Maurice, our erstwhile “gangster of love”, narrowed it down to a handful of franchises, including the Buffalo Bills, the Cincinnati Bengals, and the New Orleans Saints. He wanted a team that would be more consistently competitive, playoff type football team.
He wanted a team, that if possible, he could road trip to see, but most of all, he wanted any team that WASN’T the Chicago Bears – a team that repeatedly let down their most avid fans.
Ultimately, he decided to invest his fandom (and money) in the New Orleans Saints. I would have preferred he picked the Bengals or Bills, but he liked the potential for the Saints, not to mention that he envisioned some fun road trips to the “bayou” to spend a weekend eating beignets at Café du Monde, or sampling some adult beverages in the French Quarter.
I share that story because Maurice is now on another quest.
A new beer.
See, Maurice is a man of principle and integrity. A successful banker over the last 25+ years, he’s a patriot and America First kind of guy. After a summer afternoon ride on his Harley, one of many over the last 20 years (with a new Harley on the way), Maurice enjoys stopping at a small town Flyover Country kind of bar and drinking that (formerly) patriotic beer, Budweiser, also known as “Bud Heavy” or my personal favorite moniker, “The Diesel”.
Maurice is disgusted by the callous disrespect of the folks at Anheuser-Busch. After “Russiagate” (recently completely debunked with the Durham Report), Impeachment 1 over a freaking phone call with Ukraine, COVID, miraculous late night vote dumps, the January 6th set-up, Impeachment 2, and pretty much every other “f**k you” from the elites and political class, Maurice (and many others like him) has had enough.
That’s why I believe that this boycott has legs.
Where I’m at in Flyover Country, Farmer Luke once shared with me, many years ago, that “Busch Light is the beer of choice for farmers”. That’s been a go-to for me and my buddies, but now, we’ve also said “nope”.
My dad serves as the commander of the American Legion in the small town where I grew up (and he still lives). While bartending for my dad at a charity auction at the Legion last month, a few weeks after the A-B folks gave a giant middle finger to their loyal customer base, I saw people I grew up with, teachers and coaches I learned from, and many others, in the crowd of 100+, the attendees made frequent comments and chose any beer but an Anheuser Busch product.
And this is farm country in the middle of Flyover Country.
Dad had to make several beer runs over the course of the night, on behalf of the thirsty auction goers, but that was to stock up on other beers that they went through, while stacks of A-B products sat in the cooler.
That isn’t to say that other beers are perfect, but here’s what Maurice and others say. It wasn’t JUST the simple and stupid act of making a commemorative can with a man playing dress-up on it. While part of it, a bigger factor is that they went through with it in what seemed a particularly tone-deaf move just days after a woman pretending to be a man shot up a Christian school, killing six people, including three 9-year olds.
Who thought it was a good idea to celebrate some guy’s made up “1 year of womanhood anniversary”?
Not only did that seem particularly insensitive and callous, beyond the fact that it’s celebrating something controversial and definitely not mainstream, but it was quickly followed by the video showing the A-B marketing lady trashing their core (and loyal) audience as “frat guys”. Instead of acknowledging their error and how they alienated their best customers, Anheuser Busch seems to keep doubling down.
Like the patronizing, pandering, patriotic video they released in a nakedly transparent attempt to apologize by not apologizing.
They thought that would be enough, and that they could wish it away.
They can’t, though, and it won’t.
They’re in a bind. They can’t apologize to their loyal, patriotic patrons, like Maurice, because if they do, they’ll enrage the vocal, and increasingly violent, trans mob. They’re walking a tightrope trying to appease two irreconcilable sides. The longer this goes on, the less likely that Maurice and others like him are to return. You’ve just pissed off 25+ year customers who consistently buy your product.
You’re not going to attract enough “trans” drinkers to make up for the devastating losses.
To wit, look at Auron MacIntyre’s Twitter thread: Bud Light - Painted Into a Corner.
The pain is growing, to the tune of a roughly 12-billion-dollar loss in market cap.
That’s with a giant B.
I’ve walked through grocery stores, convenience stores, and gas stations. There seem to be a LOT of cases of these products lingering. There are $20 off coupons for cases of Bud Light, essentially making ti free. 30-packs of Busch Light that would normally retail, on sale, for $19 or $20, now going for $15 – a steep discount.
Rumblings surface of retailers and distributors starting to feel the pain and the impact it might have on their operation.
Which leads us back to Maurice. He’s done with Budweiser, absent some major and sincere mea culpa. Even then, he’s not going to just forgive and forget right away. When you’re cheated on and disrespected like this, you don’t just naively go back to the way things were. It takes time to rebuild trust in a relationship, and I can tell you, A-B has pissed most (if not all) of their credibility away.
So, just like his search for a new NFL team, Maurice finds himself once again searching. This time it’s for a new beer to enjoy after those post-Harley ride summer afternoons.
He’s been testing several out. Miller High-Life is a “no”. Pabst Blue Ribbon failed to win first place. Same with Schlitz (if you can even find it anymore). Two promising candidates emerged recently. Got a text from him the other night: “I think Stag might be the new beer. Had a few yesterday, and it wasn’t bad.”
He’s also a fan of Yuengling, though it’s not available in his area. A relatively short drive across state lines, though, and he could stock up. Kind of a modern day “Smokey and the Bandit”.
At the end of the day, the Anheuser-Busch boycott should serve as a cautionary tale to other brands in the corporate world. It should also warn the political regime occupying D.C. and all of those blue cities and statehouses.
Flyover Country is reaching our limit and losing patience with your nonsense.
And when we make a principled decision on something, it will cost the offender a lot of money and create a lot of pain.
I’ll see Maurice in a few hours and learn how the beer search is going. I’ll keep you posted, Flyover Country.