Budvar is, quite definitively, beer (albeit of a style I don’t care for). Budweiser, on the other hand, is most definitely not beer. Some kind of alcoholic beverage, yes. Beer, no.

Of course, I am a self admitted beer snob, so my opinion may not be a fair reflection of the typical consumer.

When we think of German beer in America, we think of good beer. The biggest breweries in Germany make really bad beer – Oetinger and Krombacher. They compete solely in the discount beer market, selling bottles at less than 50 eurocents per half-liter at Aldi and Lidl. They’re really bad, and do not compare favorably to US Budweiser or most either major US beers. If AB Inbev can get the price of their Budweiser low enough, they could really eat up a lot German marketshare. AB Inbev already has a large share of the German market with Beck’s; they could take more of it with budweiser.