home brew

The brainwashing has been very effective. That's just about all I can come up with. Perhaps, I posit, this is the same kind of primal thinking that kept the serfs from killing their lords. Because it's not about flag-waving, it's not about money, it's not even about the beer. But to a person, every local I talk to has the same, dead-serious, gut-level reaction to the notion of our brewery being sold.

It's just wrong.

We realize, of course, that, technically, Anheuser-Busch is a multi-billion dollar corporation owned by countless shareholders, the vast majority of whom have never set foot in St. Louis, Missouri. We fail to grasp the relevance.

We understand that the Clydesdales and Grant's Farm and even the brewery tour (which some of us haven't even taken) are just marketing gimmicks. We don't care.

We know that the Gussie is dead, and baseball team has been owned by a different bunch of rich guys for a while now, and the stadium will be called something else whenever a higher bid comes in. We choose not to think about it.

It's all just part of the place we call home. I could attempt to explain it more fully, if you're ever in the neighborhood. I've got Fat Tire, and Landshark, and Shlafly's Pale Ale (a real local beer), and something called Trinity that I haven't even tried yet, and thus supplied I'm sure we could come up with an excellent explanation of the psychology behind these imaginary ties that bind.