Anheuser-Busch & MillerCoors Can Drinking Water for Hurricane Victims

When big disasters strike in America, big beer stops beer production and instead cans drinking water for the Red Cross.  Anheuser-Busch/InBev (owners of Budweiser/Stella/Shocktop etc.) are delivering over 155,000 cans of emergency drinking water to help communities in the Gulf Coast area in response to Hurricane Harvey. 

The water will be distributed at Red Cross shelters in Baton Rouge, La., where Flash Flood Watch is in effect through Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.

“Throughout the year, we periodically pause beer production at our Cartersville, Ga., brewery to produce emergency canned drinking water so we are ready to help out communities across the country in times of crisis,” said Sarah Schilling, brewmaster at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in a statement.

“Putting our production and logistics strengths to work by providing safe, clean drinking water is the best way we can help in these situations,” she said.  (Also, who doesn’t want to have a beer (or water) with Brew Master Schilling?)

I do this for a living, not a hobby. Bud brewmasters #giveadamn #CheersAB pic.twitter.com/GOpMkDJlx0

— Sarah Schilling (@FrauBrewster) January 25, 2016

Not to be outdone in the realm of philanthropy and incredibly positive PR, MillerCoors and can-maker Ball Corp. have teamed up to send the emergency drinking water (50k cans) to Revolver, a MillerCoors brewery about 275 miles northwest of Houston.

For some reason there is a good deal of confusion as to how many cans of water Budweiser is delivering,  Foxnews is reporting 50k cans, a CBS station is reporting 500k cans.  So we simply checked with Budweiser themselves, and they state on there website the number is 155k.  While MillerCoors is sending 50k…but whatever, both big brewers are helping out the victims of Hurricane Harvey by providing the Red Cross with safe, portable, drinking water.

Anheuser-Busch halted beer production to can water during natural disasters before, including during flooding in Louisiana, wildfires in California and Hurricane Mathew.