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Anheuser-Busch's board has accepted a $52 million takeover offer from Belgian brewer InBev, creating the world's largest brewer, the two companies announced late Sunday evening.

The company will be called Anheuser-Busch InBev, and InBev CEO Carlos Brito will be the CEO of the combined company.

"Together, Anheuser-Busch and InBev will accomplish much more than each can on its own," Brito told reporters in a conference call Monday morning.

The announcement ends a month of hostility between the brewer of Budweiser and InBev, which traded lawsuits when InBev tried to oust A-B's board.

They'll likely sell the Clydesdale's off to the glue factory and replace them with some cheesy European symbol...

Maybe A-B will finally put out a REAL beer now

I just don't see the big deal about it.

I wouldn't suspect you would? That's how its become in America...

It is called free market.

How un-American. Yeah, yeah, I know Busch is German. But, Anheuser-Busch is 148 years old, was founded on American soil in the 1860's, and is easily as American as apple pie, baseball, and Chevrolet.

The name derives from the Bohemian city Budweis (Budweiser meaning "from Budweis" in the German language), which was part of the German HRE until 1806, then Austrian Empire until 1918, then Czechoslovakia until 1993, then Czech Republic (since 1920 using Czech name České Budějovice). The long tradition of brewing beer in Budweis started in 1265. In 1795, the German citizens founded a brewery named Budweiser Bier Bürgerbräu. In 1895, Czech brewers followed, founding the brewery called Budějovický Budvar.

In 1876, an Italian immigrant started to brew and sell a brand of beer he called "Budweiser Beer" in the United States.

Believe it or not there are actually a lot of people that like the taste of Bud.

Budweiser is brewed using rice, barley malt, water, hops and yeast. It is lagered with beechwood chips in the aging vessel which, according to Budweiser, creates a smoother taste. Rice will produce a "clean finish." Anheuser-Busch was also one of the few breweries during Prohibition that had the resources and wherewithal to convert to "cereal beer" production -- malt beverage made with non-fermentables such as rice and unmalted barley and rye, and able to stay under the 0.5% limit established by the Volstead Act. Following the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the major breweries continued to use unmalted cereal grains to provide the full body and mouthfeel of a "real" beer while keeping the alcohol content low. Budweiser and Bud Light are sometimes advertised as vegan beers, in that their ingredients and conditioning do not use animal by-products. However, few beers contain animal by-products, and some vegans might object to the inclusion of genetically engineered rice.[10]. Recently, however, Budweiser destined for Mexico has been made with organic rice. A-B has yet to extend this offer to any other countries.

While beechwood chips are used in the maturation tank, there is little to no flavor contribution from the wood, mainly because they are boiled in sodium bicarbonate [baking soda] for seven hours for the very purpose of removing any flavor from the wood. The maturation tanks (A-B call them chip tanks) that Anheuser-Busch utilizes are horizontal and, as such, flocculation of the yeast occurs much more quickly. Anheuser-Busch refers to this process as a secondary fermentation, with the idea being that the chips give the yeast more surface area to rest on. This is also combined with a krausening procedure that re-introduces wort into the chip tank therefore activating the fermentation process again. By placing chips at the bottom of the tank, the yeast remains in suspension longer, giving it more time to reabsorb and process green beer flavors, such as acetaldehyde and diacetyl, that Anheuser-Busch believes are off-flavors which detract from overall drinkability.