Now here’s a tradition I can get behind.

In Calgary there’s an annual parade and ten days of festivities known as Calgary Stampede. Stampede launches on First Friday, the first Friday in July after Canada Day. Until the final Sunday beer is often and liberally shared. If you are near someone who orders a round of beers chances are you’re going to offered one whether you know the group or not. And odds are that after such treatment you’ll do the same. It’s just what you do.

They call it Beer It Forward. The party ended yesterday. I’d have told you about it sooner but I just learned myself. But that gives me a year to find an excuse to get to Calgary in time for Stampede 2009.

Proving that everyone does indeed have a price, August Busch’s initially defiant words have now withered to reluctant acceptance. This is turning out to be an interesting year for US beer. The new MillerCoors is set to launch in a few months creating a single entity of what used to be the numbers two and three competitors and now A-B has become an Inbev property.

I doubt that the average beer drinker will see much change from all of this top-level shuffling. Budweiser, MGD and the “cold activation” labels will still grace the beer stores’ shelves with great abundance and perhaps less cost – certainly not more. These new entities will focus on cutting costs so we can expect big job losses and a cut-back on new beers. Where A-B has been spending a lot of effort and resources on developing new beers and investing in existing, successful craft brewers it will now focus on streamlining and increasing the bottom line.