"Just please don’t insult my intelligence by telling me it’s all for my own good."

A couple weeks back, I drove over to Cumberland Brewery for a morning chat with Mark Allgeier. We both remarked about the difficulty in espousing the virtues of localism in brewing, particularly as it pertains to wholesale distribution.

Lagunitas came up, and I observed that I couldn't even remember the last time I'd had one. No offense, but it means next to nothing to me. It's just another beer from somewhere else, and my beery libido is more regional these days.

I was walking back to my car, and there was the Lagunitas truck in front of Old Town Liquors. The Heineken deal was announced the following day, I believe.

The point is that Stephen Beaumont hits the center of the target. Maybe you'll take HIS word for it.

Dear Brewery with the ‘SOLD’ Sign: Cut the Crap!, by Stephen Beaumont

 ... Look, I get it that when you build a small business into a larger one you have a corresponding rise in responsibilities. I understand that there are employees to consider, investors to pay out, maybe bank loans to finance. I know personally about the sacrifice and strife involved in being an entrepreneur for 25 or more years, grinding away and hoping that others will share your vision sufficiently that your business might turn into a success. And I appreciate that many long-time brewery owners may not have a succession plan in place.

Hell, I even understand pure avarice of the “they backed up a dump truck full of money” variety.

But when your company’s entire marketing strategy has for years been based upon the premise of “small is good, big is evil,” do you honestly think it reasonable to suddenly turn on a dime and tell us otherwise? After imploring us to “buy local” for decades, does it really make sense to expect us to abruptly opt for “international” instead? Do you really believe that the joining of a small brewery – and let’s face it, everything in craft brewing is tiny relative to the big international brewers! – with a multi-billion dollar company can ever be anything even approaching a “meeting of equals”? Do you truly think that the massive corporate structure to which you have just made your sale really “shares the passion” that led you into craft brewing in the first place?

Wetting a line.

I must confess that I've been too busy and preoccupied this year to have sufficient time for composing the screeds that formerly defined my existence as a beer writer of sorts. This is a matter of regret, but sometimes life intrudes.

On a good day, I'm still capable of poking sticks though the bars of the American swill asylum, as with this week's Louisville Eccentric Observer column: Mug Shots: The Bud Isn't Your Buddy.

Yes, I realize that lobbing potshots at Budweiser is like shooting benumbed fish in a barrel, but the reason I persist in doing it is to watch the reaction ... and, inevitably, there is a reaction, although sometimes it takes a while. Usually the reaction resembles the same type of graceless, ham-fisted extortion that has played such an important part in the American icon's business model for the past century.

In a society that presumably values free expression, should A-B's unhappiness about words written in a newspaper column be conveyed in any way other than words of the company's own expressing a contrary point of view, with readers left to decide on their own?

I possess no information to suggest that anyone connected with A-B has ever read anything I've ever written or cares if they have. But for better or worse, I don't trust 'em. Consider yesterday's column a curmudgeon's fishing expedition. We'll see if there were any nibbles.

InBev to absorb A-B -- and it doesn't matter a single bit.

News from Reuters: InBev agrees to buy Anheuser for $50 billion.

Go ahead. Read this and other stories about the creation of the world’s largest beer maker, and if you find any bits of text that have the remotest thing to do with beer (as opposed to shares of stock), please let me know.

As the hypocrites clamor about the “American icon” Budweiser falling into the hostile hands of a Belgo-Brazilian consortium, I’ll do my best to suppress a yawn as big as distance between Budweiser and anything truly worth drinking, and remind readers that precious few people gave a damn during A-B’s march to the top, when its carnivorous tactics chewed up and spit out countless small, local competitors.

Swill-loving, America-first advocates please take note: Very soon none of the “big three” – Coors, Miller or A-B – will be independent.

The perfect time to switch to locally-brewed beer, don’t you think?

One of A-B's arms atones for the other -- with cash.

Strictly speaking, there’s no A or B in the word “hypocrisy,” but a rich vein of disingenuousness characterizes just about everything else the bloated megabrewer does.

HI: Beer money is OK for paying to combat excessive drinking

Anheuser-Busch claims that the brewery and its 600 wholesalers have spent more than $500 million since 1982 on national and community-based programs to combat alcohol abuse, including underage drinking. The company sends that message in much of its promotional material.

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Beermaker urged to pull Spykes

Alcohol abuse prevention groups nationwide are asking beer company Anheuser-Busch to pull its new flavored alcohol drink, Spykes, off the market.

Spykes, introduced in January, are 24-proof alcohol shots in such flavors as watermelon and mango. They are sold in 2-ounce plastic bottles usually for less than $2. In addition to 12% alcohol, Spykes contain guarana, ginseng and caffeine — ingredients associated with popular energy drinks.

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Thanks to the Brewers Association for the headlines.