If you have been keeping up with this Bud Light and the transgender spokesperson controversy at all, you are probably aware of the fact that Bud Light's parent company is actually of Belgian ownership. This "reaction" might just be a coincidence because there were other rules that were violated by Miller here, but the timing does seem pretty convenient given what is going on right now.
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The action was carried out by Customs in Antwerp, Belgium and it consisted of exactly 2352 cans of Miller High Life, which I am quite certain can't possibly be a very popular beer in Belgium. According to Miller, the company does not export to member countries of the European Union although nobody is willing to admit any sort of mistake being made here. Who knows what the hell is going on.
The official reason for doing this was not because of some sort of beer rivalry but because the slogan of Miller High Life, which is written on all of their products is that Miller High Life is the "Champagne of Beers"
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You are probably aware of this already but in case you aren't here's a tidbit of information for you. No product other than the bubbly and sparkling wines that are created in the Champagne region of France is allowed to refer to their bottle of stuff as "champagne." While we all around the world refer to all of these types of things as "champagne" it is actually illegal for anyone to use that word unless it is a specific product from a specific part of the world. This is why you will more often than not see "sparkling wine" or something like that on your bottle of "Champagne" you bought for $12 at Wal-Mart for the holidays.
I don't mind Miller High Life, but for anyone that has had it I find it quite ironic that they would use a slogan like that because the implication is that their beer is the BEST! It isn't bad, but it certainly isn't the best. I guess they weighed their options about how many countries were going to ban its import compared to how many countries would actually purchase it if they were to drop the slogan and realized that most Europeans wouldn't drink this stuff, even if they were giving it away for free.
I'm no beer snob and I will admit that I have purchased High Life in the past and a lot of my reasoning for doing so was specifically because of their silly slogan, which I repeated many times throughout the night while I was serving them to my friends whilst pretending that I believed it to be the best beer in the world just to spark heated conversation.
Miller will likely never drop the slogan even with pressure from the EU because they have had that slogan for over 100 years.
So to answer my own question that was in the title: "No" the beer wars have not begun. Anheuser-Busch almost certainly has its "beef" with Miller, but not to the point where they would go out of their way to destroy a mere 2000 cans of the stuff. It is just funny to me that this would happen when it did.
