Do you like drinking beer? Do you think german beer is good? Are you a football (or soccer, if you are American) fan? Are you therefore looking forward to World Championships 2006 in Germany? Well, you might face a little drawback then. Especially if you don't like American Budweiser beer. Because that will be the only stuff available in the stadiums and the vicinity.
It sounds like a bad joke, but it is true. In the land that is generally associated with beer (although we are only third concerning consumption per head) local breweries are not allowed to sell beer in or around the stadiums, because the FIFA has an exclusive contract with US brewery Anheuser-Busch, whose best known brand is Budweiser.
I don't want to judge American beer in general or Budweiser in particular here because I never drank any, but I know people who did and they all say it can't compete with the European stuff. Plus I regard importing beer from overseas into a country with sufficient facilities to provide local beverages of the same (if not better) quality as nonsense.


I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
(Terry Pratchett)