The World Is Not Enough
Brewery and Country of Origin: Anheuser-Busch, Inc. of 1 Busch Place, St. Louis, MO 63118, USA
Date Reviewed: 4-01-15
Books are beautiful. In an instant, they can magically teleport your mind from the bed linen and couch filled suburbs to the Amazon Rain Forest, the bottom of the ocean, Ancient Greece, Neptune, or even Hogwarts. The real beauty of books lies in the form of your imagination. Text may help conjure up various images, thoughts, or ideas, but it's your imagination that interprets all of the little pieces of everything it reads, and crafts an entire world out of it. The taste of Turkish Delight, the smell of low tide, or the sound of a thundering steam engine. A book is more than just a story or words on a page. It's an instruction manual for your mind to reproduce the author's world as they imagined it. And even more special is that each time a book is interpreted, everyone's world is different, because no one thinks exactly the same way, and no one has an identical imagination. A book is a ticket to any destination at any time and place ever conceived by thought. And yes, we may be sounding like a cheesy motivational puppy poster in an elementary school library, but it is hard to deny the power of books when they are married with the creativity of the mind. The same can be said about a Rembrandt masterpiece, a Ludovico Einaudi concert, or a Spielberg blockbuster. Art may only be heard or seen, but it can inspire imagery that entices all of your senses. The same can be said about taste. Food and drinks can also transport the mind to faraway places or different times in history. Anything from childhood memories to a past vacation along the French Riviera.
Back in the spring of 1965, as the country was protesting the draft and the Vietnam War, the World was heavily invested in exploring space, and hippie music was on a total global conquest, the masterminds over at Anheuser-Busch began working on an idea that would forever change the beer industry. The idea was, they would craft a beer so vibrant, so flavorful, and so universally accepted that not only would it immediately be recognized by the world's beer community as the best beer ever produced by humanity, but it would deliver an experience so profound, so jaw-dropping, that it would change the way we think of art. Creating such a beer wouldn't be easy, even for the world's largest brewer, and pursuing its creation would prove to be the single most ambitious as well as controversial undertaking in world history. In its fifty year long development, AB Inbev's "master beer" would be the spark which would incite numerous civil wars, global conflicts, culture-shifting protests, and eventually push the Cold War to its most delicate and tense moments in the early 1980s, when President Ronald Regan and the Soviet Union both vowed to win the nuclear arms race in an effort to control the brewery's intellectual property. Once word of a new super beer reached the global corridors of power, the higher ups at Anheuser-Busch became the focus of various assassination attempts, terrorist attacks, and government corruption. In 1970, after a five year long world wide poll, it was decided that the beer would be made to emulate the sensory experience of the Mayan Coast of Mexico. A beautiful 88F sunny day with a gentle breeze, crisp ocean air, tropical cuisine, gorgeous models as far as the eye can see, and the most perfect vacation imaginable. All of this for what was then, the equivalent of $2.50? In most people's minds, it was worth the prospect of an apocalyptic nuclear war. AB would go on to further develop the details of the beer, which would use only the purest ingredients sourced from the world's most fertile locations perfect for growing hops, barley, and yeast strains used in only the most prestigious sub-tropical beers. It would be eventually revealed that President Richard Nixon would resign in the face of inevitable impeachment over events surrounding the famous Watergate Scandals, in which he and his administration attempted to use both the FBI and the CIA to extort information about the superbeer from company officials. In 1979, after more details were unearthed about the beer's potentially "magical" powers, it was announced that the Soviet Union would launch a full scale nuclear attack on the United States and its allies if they didn't receive the beer's secret brewing recipe by June 1st, 1985. It was only by sheer luck, that newly appointed Mikhail Gorbachev wasn't much of a fan of Budweiser. His dislike for macrobreweries led to his restructuring of the Soviet Union, as well as his policies of Glasnost as well as Perestroika, which would ease tensions between the Soviets and President Ronald Regan. The hostile takeover of a strategic Anheuser-Busch Embassy in Kuwait would lead to the Gulf War in the 90s. In 1999, it was decided that the beer would be known as "Bud Light & Clamato Chelada," using only the best Italian tomatoes and the finest Atlantic clams alive. Recently, brewmaster Edward Snowden leaked classified information about the NSA's controversial surveillance tactics used to gain insider knowledge of the beer's release, which would once again stir up tensions between the United States and Russia, who was beginning to ramp up their efforts to compete in the global beer race, having recently completed the acquisition of the Pabst Brewing Company in 2014.
Nine US Presidents, 16 wars, 7,253 workplace related sexual harrassment lawsuits, and over $2.917 trillion in investments later, Anheuser-Busch's half-century in-the-making magnum opus was released to immediate and widespread critical acclaim. Despite initial concern that the beer might turn into another overhype, underperform example of art driven megaprojects, the beer sold out in twelve seconds. There is currently a 349 year waiting list for a small chance to be placed in a lottery which determines who will be entered into a sweepstakes which will decide who gets placed into a secondary lottery which picks who has the rights to purchase a spot on another 475 year waiting list to buy the actual beer. Though jumping spots through bribes and spot selling has been made illegal via the preeminent Toronto Treaty of 2014, many of the world's rich and famous have still paid holders of higher spots amounts in excess of $300 million in order to try the beer while they're still alive. Fortunately, we were able to get our hands on a can of the beer, which has been featured in numerous pop music videos, summer action blockbusters, and even a Susan Grafton mystery novel through a friend named Kate in the Royal Family. So, in our humble beer appreciating minds, was it all worth it?
Date Sampled: 12-26-14 At: 146 Fiddlers Hollow, Penfield, NY 14526, USA
Beer Style: Fruit/Vegetable Lager
Alcohol by Volume: 4.20%
Serving Type: 25 oz Can, 16 oz Mug Glass
Rating: 4.93