I don't write a lot about Budweiser.

 

It's not because of any prejudice I have about Budweiser. Hell, it's not like I get to write about what I want to anyway. If the editor says write about Bud, and I want to buy those little runny cheeses that smell like ass that month – and I always do – well, I write about Bud. I generally like the people I've met from Anheuser-Busch and their facilities are gorgeous. When you can finally get hold of the person you need – it is a huge company – they're always willing to talk pretty freely.

 

But what do you talk about? How it tastes? "Hey, this Bud sure tastes the same as the last 2,179 Buds I've had!" I write magazine articles aimed at beer store owners sometimes. Maybe I could tell them how to sell Bud. "Put the fresh stuff on the shelf, give the old stuff back to the driver, and pray for a Bud ad on the game that week." There's some hot inside dope, huh? How about the differences in the A-B family? "You know, professional tasters agree: Bud Light tastes lighter than Bud." Deep insight like that is why we professional tasters make the big money, bucko.

 

Look, there's very little to talk about with Budweiser, because it's ubiquitous. Everyone's had it, everyone already has an opinion. I got no angle on that. Budweiser's iconic. It is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. When it comes to Budweiser, I feel like Jon Entwistle's lyrics to "905" from Who's Next: "Every idea in my head, someone else has said."

 

But it's that iconic character that makes Budweiser interesting to me as a student and critic of beer. Because so many people drink Bud and because A-B spends so much on marketing and advertising, Bud has a major impact on the public perception of beer in America. To many people, even to most people, the lines from this new Bud ad that I'm quoting are true: This is Budweiser. This is beer. And that is really interesting, because Bud ads change what people think beer is in this country, like it or not.

 

The new ad I'm talking about is called "Anthem," and it debuted Week One of the NFL season. You probably already know the ad: a country-rock tune bouncing along in a quiet beginning, and quick-cut shots of a farmer with horse, a cop, a small town, farmers, a rooftop party, a picnic, rail workers, guys at a bar drinking Bud.

This is what I call mine. This is true. This is Budweiser.

 

That's when the music cranks up and the proud Bud images start: grain elevators with B-U-D-W-E-I-S-E-R on them in red, Clydesdales, pouring draft Bud, the Bud NASCAR car and pit crew.

 

And whether you drink Bud or not, whether you like the Anheuser-Busch corporation or think they're a bunch of greedy pirates, whether you like this kind of beer or you're a proud drinker of everything but, I'm telling you: this ad is good news for beer in America, every beer, of every kind.

 

Budweiser, even though it's been eclipsed as the country's best seller by Bud Light, even though you may not like it, is the image of American beer, by dint of the hundreds of millions of dollars A-B spends on advertising. For the past ten years or more, the image of American beer has been candy-assed and stupid. It became an interchangeable "product" that could be switched with any other product in ads with talking lizards, ferrets, frogs, and farting horses, and no one would have noticed. They were about the brand, the holy name of the beer that eventually becomes divorced from the actual beer when it's all about "WAASSSSSSUPPP!!!" and Dick the Creative Genius and "those twins."

 

But when you start just making ads that are disconnected from the beer ("the liquid," the guys in marketing call it), and marketing campaigns keyed on humor and sex, the product loses dignity and respect. These ads come under fire from anti-alcohol groups for being aimed at underage drinkers. They take beer down to the lowest common denominator: a commodity. They make the wine people right: beer is a drink for idiots. After a decade of this kind of post-modern self-deprecation, suddenly a brewery wakes up and realizes that people think their product is boring and irrelevant, and they're going to look for something else: hard lemonade, merlot, cocktails, hell, even rye whiskey.

 

Thank God someone at A-B got their head out of their ass long enough to realize that the time was right to take the high road, and "Anthem" was the result. It's all about the beer and the people who drink it. The folks in the ad are all obviously of age, there aren't any cartoons, there aren't any stupid people doing stupid stuff while holding "the product." The music is catchy and hummable, the images are likable.

 

Hell, I don't usually drink Bud, but watching that ad made me proud to be an American.

 

"Anthem" begins the redemption of American beer. Yes, beer geeks, it's still Bud, I know. But I think A-B is going to give variety another chance sometime soon, and the market might just be ready for it. It's going to be interesting times when that happens. Meanwhile, the image of beer has begun its rehabilitation.

 

So hats off to Anheuser-Busch this week. Keep up the good work, boys. The rest of us are counting on you.