BREAKING: Anheuser Busch Comes Clean!
PARODY ALERT! PARODY ALERT! PARODY ALERT!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 4th 2023
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
In April 1933, August A. Busch, Jr. and Adolphus Busch III surprised their father, August A. Busch, Sr., with the gift of a six-horse Clydesdale hitch to commemorate the repeal of Prohibition of beer.
Realizing the marketing potential of a horse-drawn beer wagon, the company also arranged to have a second six-horse Clydesdale hitch sent to New York to mark the event. The Clydesdales drew a crowd of thousands on their way to the Empire State Building. After a small ceremony, a case of Budweiser was presented to former Governor Alfred E. Smith in appreciation of his years of service in the fight against Prohibition.
This hitch continued on a tour of New England and the Mid-Atlantic states, thrilling thousands, before stopping in Washington, D.C., in April 1933 to reenact the delivery of one of the first cases of Budweiser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Shortly after the hitch was first introduced, the six-horse Clydesdale team increased to eight. On March 30, 1950, in commemoration of the opening of the Anheuser-Busch Newark Brewery, a Dalmatian was introduced as the Budweiser Clydesdales’ mascot. Now, a Dalmatian travels with each of the Clydesdale hitches.
Today, the Budweiser Clydesdales continue to be an enduring symbol of our heritage, tradition, and commitment to quality.
We realize we have lost our focus on these values. Heritage and tradition are some of the most important things we share. Our desire has always been to create excellent products around which our customers can celebrate these values. It is important to us that these celebrations embrace the widest range of people in the communities we serve. We will not turn a blind eye to how people in often-marginalized communities suffer isolation and loneliness. People of all ages who have suffered gender dysphoria are only one part of these communities. We will not apologize for extending a warm invitation to them to celebrate heritage and tradition with us.
But we must apologize for failing to see something which was right in front of us. Our recent attachment to Dylan Mulvaney was intended to be that warm invitation to celebrate heritage and tradition. We accept Dylan’s story and life experience as authentic - even if it does not fit into the belief systems of many of us and our customers. As a country we have made great strides; the minstrel shows of old where a White person wears Black face and plays to racial stereotypes has rightly been banished from acceptable culture and entertainment. We do not believe Dylan intends her social media content to be such, but we cannot ignore the parallels observed by others. Such content appears to some to be “Woman-face” playing to certain female stereotypes.
We are better than this. Not just our company – all of us.
Our heritage and tradition are best protected by our customers as they enjoy ordinary conversation over great beer. It is important to us as a company that people like Dylan be invited to these conversations. But we also realize there are very few among us who stoke otherwise legitimate grievances to generate fear and outrage. We want to be known for selling great beer. We do not want to be associated with those who monetize our attention by keeping us angry and afraid. We are saddened by this trend. It makes it harder for ordinary people to have important conversations over a pint of great beer.
If you are among those few who have chosen to hijack real stories of loneliness and suffering, or racial discrimination, for political or financial gain, please do not buy our beer – any of it. We do not make it for those who would divide us. It is for those who wish to celebrate our heritage and traditions together.
If you believe with us that we should always seek to “form a more perfect union” – and that this means listening to the stories of those who have been marginalized, we humbly ask you to share one of our beers with a neighbor from the LGBT community. Please invite them: “Tell me your story...” And if their story makes you uncomfortable, take another sip and say: “Tell me more...” Let us turn away from the media (and perhaps turn off our phones entirely) at least for the time it takes to get to know one another better.
If you find your tastes in beer changing as new and interesting craft beer comes to market, please tell us what you’d like to see from our brand lineup. The Budweiser Clydesdales stand for our commitment to quality. We renew that commitment to you today.
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The first five paragraphs of this Press Release have been taken almost verbatim from https://www.anheuser-busch.com/about/clydesdale. It is a parody brought to you by Gina Roberts and John Horst of San Diego, California. Gina is a transgender woman, championship shooter, political conservative, and a Second Amendment advocate. John is a socially conservative Christian with a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and seeks to serve the LGBT community as a Chaplain. Gina and John seek opportunities to build bridges between conservative Christian and local LGBT communities. Visit Gina at gwrgoc@gmail.com and John at @CraftBeerSnob (Twitter) and Thomas Paine’s Blog on Substack.