Merger talks in the beer industry have got everyone wondering whether or not Budweiser is gonna fall into foreign hands. AdAge article today suggests that if a Brazilian company takes over the All-American company and the All-Americanist of brands, Budweiser, that drinkers may revolt, or at least that’s what the distributors are saying. Crap. I believe jingoism and commerce went wayside with Y2K.

First of all, in the aggregate, the working economy is really a global enterprise. It’s impossible to look exclusively at markets within borders. “Ownership” has become relatively meaningless as global markets overlap and merge and generally co-mingle. We no longer get daily, even hourly, updates from just the NYSE and the NASDAQ but also from London and Tokyo, etc. The Nikkei index is as important as the Dow Index. CNN and MSNBC and BBC reports on business transactions from all over the world, not just in their region. Hell, I can buy a Japanese stock just as easy as an American stock. And so can anyone else. People don’t care who owns what. Nobody cares. Not even Joe Sixpack.

But then, there’s the brand. People do indeed care about brands. It’s how they identify themselves and how they find others who feel the same way. Awesome. And Budweiser is the quintessential American beer. It’s drinking the flag. You feel like you’ve just bailed a big stack of hay on some farm and the sky is blue. It feels good. That’s never going to change. A-B shouldn’t worry. It’s not gonna become Companheiroweiser just because a few Brazilians own the most shares.

People also know that brands are now global. Even A-B gets half its business from overseas markets. Brands are on The Internet. Brands are worldwide. People love Budweiser in China because you are drinking American culture (and I supposed because it’s hot and beer is cold). But I suppose that’s not the real point of the AdAge article because it’s about American drinkers rejecting Busweiser because it would now be owned by “foreigners.” But American drinkers are people too and know that brands are global and know that brands are owned by lots of people and are savvy enough to deal with any consequences of ownership change. Seriously, don’t worry. Just don’t change the brand.

Part of the controversy was that A-B made a big deal out of Miller’s foreign ownership five years ago, used it as a competitive advantage and now if A-B becomes foreign-owned as well wouldn’t that be disingenuous. Well, maybe, if that campaign from five years ago had any effect whatsoever. I think it actually backfired on A-B and sparked a period of growth for Miller, in particular, Miller Lite.

Look, A-B is not going to change its brand strategy. It’s still gonna be Budweiser, the American beer. It’s not gonna become Companheiroweiser just because a few Brazilians own the most shares.

Damn the beer business is fun to watch.