Can you help

I saw a really interesting article on the Atlas Obscura website that tells of the good work that the people at the Anheuser-Busch breweries do at considerable expense to themselves.

And no, it's not the production of their fine beers, which I have enjoyed over the course of my life beginning with the day I turned 21 (it is illegal for minors to possess or consume alcohol, a rule I observed faithfully.)

Save the beer (and I mean that!) and get ready for some cold canned water, if, God forbid, a hurricane or other giant disaster befalls you, because Anheuser-Busch will voluntarily turn off the beer taps and pour the water they would otherwise mix with barley, hops and wheat to provide the world with golden amber beverages.


And they didn't just start this the other day.

In 1906 Adolphus Busch, founder of the company, found himself in San Francisco after the terrible earthquake they had out there. Mr Busch telegraphed the head of the Red Cross, pledging $100,000 in aid.  

That would be like pledging over $2.5 million these days.

So the Busch brewers have long been generous to others in time of need. It was 1988 that the company realized that there is always a need for clean clear drinking water at the site of calamities, and they devised a program to can, store, and have ready to distribute canned water to help those in a jam.

According the article, it's more of a hassle to can water than to can beer; it's something to do with carbonation. But for comparison's sake, a brewery can can 30,000 cases of beer in an eight-hour shift, and it takes sixteen hours to produce that much canned water.

But can it, they do, and they are ready to do so at all of their breweries around the nation.  All of them can switch from beer to water as need be.

I wish that were true of all people, but anyway.

Just to show again the Anheuser-Busch commitment to having H2O ready (because who knows when the need will occur) the Bud plant in Cartersville, Georgia, regularly turns off the beer tap and cans water just to be ready.

I hope that none of you ever find yourself holding a can of Bud REALLY Lite, but if you do, it's because you're in a disaster area, and it's good to know there is help.