July 27, 2013.

'King of Beers,' Fizzling in U.S., Sets Goal of World Domination

The telescreen struck fourteen. He must leave in ten minutes. He had to be back at work by fourteen-thirty.

ZIYANG, China----Little of the Western world has infiltrated this dusty city in China's rural hinterland, where red lanterns hand from lampposts and restaurants serve pig tail and duck neck. But Americans would recognize a beer increasingly making the rounds here: Budweiser, which flows from a state-of-the-art brewery built below a hilltop pagoda.

Curiously, the chiming of the hour seemed to have put new heart into him. He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage. He went back to the table, dipped his pen, and wrote:

Advertisements for the 137-year-old brand from St. Louis, Mo., drape the windows of a banquet hall, trumpeting the year of the snake. The walls, floors and stairs of a karaoke bar are blanketed with Budweiser's red bow tie and gold crown symbols. On a narrow back street, three hot pot restaurants serve the beer. "It's brewed in Ziyang. I'm very proud of that," says Li Mei, manager at the "Very Hot Hot Pot."

To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone----to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone:

From  the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink----greetings!

From soda to sneakers to cigarettes, a host of American brands have managed to become dominant across the world. But now, after watching the so-called King of Beers falter badly for years, Anheuser-Busch InBev NV BUD +0.46% is trying to go where no beer maker has even come close before----creating the world's first big global beer brand.