Our friends at Anheuser-Busch InBev have been busy lately. It started on Super Bowl Sunday. As usual, the A-B InBev group made a big ad buy during the Big Game, and continued it’s attempts to convince people that their beer is worthwhile. Instead of insulting craft beer (including maligning styles that some of their own High End breweries make), or making Bud and Bud Light to worthy of everyman, they went after corn syrup this time, obviously trying to get the public confused with HIGH FRUCTOSE corn syrup, which is considered NOT ideal for the average American diet.

The obvious play here is the claim that Bud Light is superior to Coors Light and Miller Lite because they, Bud, do not use corn syrup. Needless to say, the people at MillerCoors struck back:

About Sunday…Kinda strange to start such a #corntroversy over something that’s not even in your beer. Share this if you agree. pic.twitter.com/WcA8aCP9TX
— Miller Lite (@MillerLite) February 5, 2019

But they weren’t the only ones. The Buddies also drew the ire of the corn industry:

.@BudLight America’s corn farmers are disappointed in you. Our office is right down the road! We would love to discuss with you the many benefits of corn! Thanks @MillerLight and @CoorsLite for supporting our industry. https://t.co/6fIWtRdeeM
— National Corn (NCGA) (@NationalCorn) February 4, 2019

ABI has tried to stir up a complete nothingburger of a scandal, only to get egg on its own face thanks to its less-than-ideal manipulation of facts. So, the only logical next step is the piss off the craft beer world, too!

ABI did just that by having its venture capital group, ZX Ventures, buy up the entirety of the beer review website ratebeer.com. ZX Ventures originally purchased a stake in the site in 2016. Brewbound has lots more detail on the acquisition, including some breweries’ loss of faith in RateBeer’s independence and how site traffic has fared since the partial and full acquisitions went down.