Anheuser-Busch announced today (though the press release is on the InBev website, not A-B’s nor the new ABIB website). The plan is to cut around “1,400 U.S. salaried positions in its beer-related divisions, affecting about 6 percent of the company’s total U.S. workforce,” three-quarters of which were at A-B HQ in St. Louis. Also, 250 vacant position will now not be filled and 415 independent contractors will also be terminated.

From the press release:

“To keep the business strong and competitive, this is a necessary but difficult move for the company,” said David A. Peacock, president of Anheuser-Busch. “We will assist in the transition for these employees as much as possible. The people of Anheuser-Busch dedicate themselves to the business, and we appreciate all of their contributions.” The company will provide employees severance pay and pension benefits based on age and years of service. Employees also will be offered additional benefits during the transition, including outplacement services.

The announced workforce reductions are in addition to the more than 1,000 U.S. salaried employees company-wide who accepted the company’s voluntary enhanced retirement program, which closed November 14 and provided special benefits for eligible employees retiring by the end of 2008. The retirements were part of planned cost reductions of [$1 billion dollars US], called project Blue Ocean, announced by Anheuser-Busch in June 2008. At that time, the company announced plans to reduce its company-wide U.S. full-time salaried workforce of 8,600 by 10 to 15 percent before the year end. The company’s other Blue Ocean cost reductions remain on track. Bargaining unit employees at the company’s 12 U.S. breweries are unaffected by the reductions announced today.

“Managing our costs is important in building and maintaining a successful business, especially in a challenging economy,” said Peacock. “We are pleased with our U.S. beer sales, we will continue to invest in growing our brands and we will always look for ways to become more efficient. Decisions like this are never easy, but they will ensure the long-term success for
Anheuser-Busch and our employees.”

The company anticipates that the aggregate pre-tax expense associated with the reduction will be approximately 197 million USD. Approximately 150 million USD of this expense will arise from severance arrangements with terminated employees and the remainder will arise from enhancements in the pension benefits required by the terms of the defined benefit plan because the terminations are occurring within three years of the change of control of the company. The company anticipates that cash expenditures from the reduction will be approximately 213 million USD. The plans announced today are an integral part of the at least 1.5 billion USD in annual synergies identified by InBev when it announced its combination with Anheuser-Busch in July. The company is confident in its ability to achieve against this synergies projection by 2011.

No surprises there, but with a mere 17 days until Christmas, it certainly feels like scrooge has arrived a little early this year.

Today was, of course, the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the 18th Amendment with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. The 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant in San Francisco, California held a Repeal Day Parade that marched from Justin Herman Plaza, near the ferry Building, to their brewpub on 2nd Street, near the Giants’ ballpark in China Basin.

Frequent stops were made along the parade route, such as Nico and Shaun dancing with a pair of flappers.

There were two messages on the day: “Repeal Prohibition” and “We Want Beer.”

For exactly 21 more photos from the 21st Amendment Repeal Day Parade, visit the photo gallery.
 

UPDATE: 21st Amendmet now has some more photos from the parade, too.

Back in May I mentioned that Sapporo Breweries was “planning to brew a beer made from barley descended from seeds grown in space, specifically in the Russian section of the International Space Station two years ago.” Back then I wrote.

According to Reuters, Sapporo said in a statement. “By pursuing the infinite possibility that space has, we wish to present our customers with rich and enjoyable proposals to enjoy a new beer culture.” Sapporo will not sell the initial results, but instead will sample select consumers on the new space beer, which should be — ahem — launched this November. Working with Okayama University scientists, they will produce just over 166 gallons of beer (630 liters). I doubt anyone will be able to taste any difference, but I’d still like to be one of the lucky ones chosen to try it.

Well, it’s December now and still no sign of a tasting. But wait, there’s more news. Sapporo announced yesterday that in January the tasting will take place. According to Japan Today, “[a] total of 30 couples, who have been selected through a lottery, will be invited to the events at the company’s six plants from Hokkaido to Oita Prefecture.”

Presumably the barley she’s holding is the third-generation space barley they used in making the beer, named Sapporo Space Barley. The original plants were sent into space and grown in the International Space Station for five months.

Showing off the bottles at yesterday’s press conference.

Only 100 liters of the beer was made, far less than originally announced, and initial reports say — not surprisingly — that it tastes the same as any other beer.

My favorites quote from the press: From Technovelgy, “I’m guessing “out of this world” will be the most common response.” And from Dvice, “[u]ntil then we’ll stay tuned to see if the space grown beer microbes yield any gamma ray-like super powers.”

My friend Pete Slosberg noticed something different in a comic strip and sent it to me yesterday. It’s a recent Non Sequitur cartoon by Wiley Miller. Read it all the way down the last panel. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Meet you at the end.

 
That’s the first I know of a craft beer being mentioned in a nationally syndicated comic strip, in this case specifically Shipyard Ale from Shipyard Brewing in Portland, Maine. That’s pretty cool, in my humble opinion.

In case you missed this, a new brewery opened yesterday in Gresham, Oregon. The 4th Street Brewery will have five regular beers on tap, including Gresham Light, Demented Duck Amber, Black Roots Blonde, Powell Porter, and Eager Beaver IPA. John Foyston had the story in the Oregonian.
 

I don’t know who Neil Hamilton is, apart from a former British Member of Parliament — a hardcore Thatcherite Conservative — who’s been embroiled in one scandal after another for many years. He doesn’t appear to be the sort of politician I’d normally side with; he even once “strongly” supported lead in gasoline and opposed removing it, not to mention being anti-trade union, anti-immigration anti-child benefit, pro-free market and supporting capital punishment, privatization, and the right of people to sell their organs. So to say we’re polar opposites might be something of an understatement.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t find any common ground. He does have some interesting things to say about drinking and the economy. In an Op-Ed piece in the UK’s Daily Express entitled Why We Have To Save the Great British Pub, Hamilton says things that no politician in America would dare say. And despite everything else he stands for, I have to admire that about him.

You should read it all in context, as it’s about what the UK government is doing with regard to alcohol laws, many of which mirror our own foolhardy efforts. But with so many choice bon mots, it’s hard to resist listing some of my favorites.

We all need something to cheer us up. So, what does our killjoy Government plan to do? Ban happy hour in pubs, that’s what.

And here’s a question that American politicians are loathe to ask.

Quite apart from the obvious uselessness of this measure, what business is it of these interfering busybodies anyway?

And none will admit this truism.

We all know alcoholics can wreck their health; so can madcap drivers but we don’t require signs on all cars saying, “Warning: Death Trap.” There is no “drink problem” in this country; only a small minority of “problem drinkers.”

U.S. alcohol policy is also quite focused on punishing everyone, too.

Why should the rest of us be denied early evening happy hours after work just because a few idiots can’t control themselves in completely different circumstances?

Penalizing everyone because they can’t police a few bad apples.

If a pub or bar habitually serves drinks to drunks, it should lose its licence. If youngsters scream and vomit in the streets, they should be arrested and punished. Why penalise sensible drinkers by raising prices and restricting hours?

And it doesn’t work here, either.

That will do nothing to reduce alcohol abuse or smoking. Addicts of either will just stay in, drinking and smoking more cheaply in front of the TV. Youngsters will tank up at home on cheap vodka before sallying forth for a night on the pull in some raucous bear-pit bar.

So instead of praising beer consumption over higher alcohol drinks like cocktails or wine, our neo-prohibitionists target beer and leave the rest alone.

The paradox of this is that beer is a low-alcohol drink and pubs are a controlled environment, tailor-made to prevent alcohol-related problems.

I presume what he’s saying is perhaps part of normal conservative rhetoric in Great Britain, or he wouldn’t be saying it in a general circulation mainstream newspaper. But over on this side of the pond, it would be positively extreme and radical, the kind of opinions that almost never grace our media outlets, print of otherwise. If one of our conservative politicians said even some of this, they’d be hounded by religious, conservative and neo-prohibitionist groups from now ’till doomsday.

Personally, I just like hearing them from someone other than myself.

Not necessarily everything to come out of Belgium is as wonderful as their beer. Witness The Smurfs, which were created by Belgian artist Peyo in 1958. Yup, you read that right. The Smurfs are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. They made our way to America in 1981, when NBC debuted that annoying Hanna-Barbera animated series.

But I may have to rethink my dislike of the Smurfs based upon this collectible figure that was made in 1974, well before the U.S. TV series. According to the Mushroom Village, a website about collecting Smurf stuff, the Smurf holding a mug of beer is designated “20078 Beer” and the “mold was introduced in 1974.” They describe it as follows. “Big smile with hands out, frothy beer mug in his right hand.” It’s considered only slightly uncommon, garnering a 2 (out of 5) rarity rating. It was available only in Hong Kong and West Germany, as far as I can tell, though I found one on eBay from Canada. (Yes, despite my hatred of the little blue people, I ordered myself one just because he’s holding a beer mug.)

It was just too completely weird not to, especially with that shit-eating wide grin. I can only assume that this particular one was never sold in the United States. Can you just imagine the hue and cry from certain parents upon finding this one in the toy bin? That fact alone makes me want one. According to Wikipedia:

From 1959 on until the end of the 1960s, Dupuis produced Smurf figurines. But the best known and most widely available Smurf figurines are those made by Schleich, a German toy company. Most of the Smurf figurines given away as promotional material (e.g. by British Petroleum in the 1970s and McDonald’s in the 1990s) are made by Schleich as well. New Smurf figures continue to appear: in fact, only in two years since 1969 (1991 and 1998) have no new smurfs entered the market. Schleich currently produces 8 new figurines a year. Over 300 million of them have been sold so far.

Okay, somebody took the idea of “beer goggles” to another dimension. Here’s a company, Urban Spectacles, that figured out a way to make actual “beer goggles,” that is prescription eyewear in which the frames are made from used, recycled beer bottles. They’ll even make them out of whatever beer bottles you want. They may not make the people in a bar look more attractive, but they are pretty cool looking all the same.

Here’s the description from the website:

Made by reusing empty beer bottles, these goggles are a playful take on eyewear. Pick out your favorite beer, or even make the selection based upon and interesting glass (think Delirium), then either drink it down or send it to me and I’ll take care of it, and the construction of Beer Goggles will begin. Then I will fit any prescription or tint of lenses into the frames and they will be ready to wear out to your local pub.

And beyond the beer goggles, the main website, Urban Spectacles, has some very unique, one-of-a-kind, frames, many hand-carved wood.

This one still has the label from Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale on it, and the pair below has the etched Stone Arrogant Bastard and Rogue’s Dead Guy on it.

One warning though: “beer goggles come with disclaimers as they are made of glass and rest near your eyes. While I have worn them out on the town and will be doing so fairly often, I am claiming Beer Goggles to be novelty items that should be worn with caution.”