one of the icons from my youth in pennsylvania, rolling rock beer, was recently bought by Anheuser-Busch (AB). as soon as the deal was closed AB announced it was moving rolling rock production to its newark brewery!

from a beer drinker's standpoint, this is a bad thing. the brewery is different, the water is different, the ingredients will probably be sourced differently, geez louise how can it be the same beer? pretty much anyone who is serious about beer knows that commodity beer is usually bad beer and commodity beer is what AB is all about. i don't like any of the AB products, so slapping a rolling rock label on the dish-water slop they normally churn out seems like a sin to me. there's a social impact to this as well. the folks in latrobe, pa. where they make rolling rock, are devastated. it was a big deal for them (well that & the pittsburg steelers training camp, btw why aren't any steeler fans raising a ruckus?). this is just a bad deal all around.

you can read more here. there's an online petition but it seems broken at the moment. there's also the saverollingrock.org website.