It’s not great beer — it’s kind of wimpy actually. But it’s our mug of suds. It might have been the first beer most of us had, the one that nudged us into that goofy, giggly discovery of the hidden charms unleashed by a brewski or four.

If it wasn’t a Schlitz, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Stroh’s, Hamm’s, Iron City, Jax, Haffenreffer, Hull’s, Harpoon, Lone Star, Pearl, Anchor Steam, Schaefer, Boh, Olympia, Coors, Falstaff, Blatz, Narragansett, Rolling Rock, Altes, Genesee, Utica Club, Carling’s Black Label, Billy Beer, Ballantine, Rheingold, Miller, Old Milwaukee or Schmidt’s, that first beer was probably a Budweiser.

It was adequate, this St. Louis brew, and it survived as a national brand while better beers fell to bad marketing. The Clydesdales pulling the beer wagon are as iconic as the Marlboro Man or Smokey Bear.

But now Budweiser is as flat as that morning-after choker with the cigarette butts floating in it. We can’t drink it anymore. It’s been bought by some belching business. No, wait a minute, that’s some Belgian business.

Yup, this Bud’s for Belgium. Feel free to cry in your beer.

The For Sale sign has gone up again on a small piece of who we are. The national yard sale continues, with all kinds of people cruising the neighborhood in search of that special something to take back home and beat the American out of it.

So, maybe we’ll see just two of those elegant Clydesdales pulling the beer wagon from now on. This new company, with the charm-free name of InBev SA, is known for keeping costs down. Maybe a single Belgian draft horse, just to drive the point home.

Tradition? Family loyalty? National pride? Make an offer.

It’s happened before. But it’s beer this time. It’s not some soulless business blob that gets picked apart and shipped overseas with market forces pushing it away.

This is the family picnic and the softball game, the instant street-corner celebration and the refreshing pass across the back hedge. This is part of the neighborhood fuel.

And Anheuser-Busch, the heartland company that grew and grew with its country, has let it get away, let it slip off to Europe as part of the great American identity drain.

Once, any substantial town and some not so substantial had their own breweries. They helped define a place. Beer and baseball often came together at a community’s heart, as they clearly did in St. Louis.

Most of those breweries didn’t survive, although many of the brands continue under new ownership. Name an old, departed beer in the right company and you can fire up a history lesson.

Budweiser was the national version of the local brew. It was the house vintage for the all-American blowout, best when served tooth-numbing cold in a long neck bottle. It was in the cooler, in the stream, in the plans for a good time.

And now it’s in that great commercial sinkhole that swallows up once-distinct local businesses where quality was demanded and skill respected and the boss knew everybody’s name.

Budweiser will still be here. It just won’t be the same. It will have a Belgian accent.

What next? Is there anything too American to become foreign-owned? With beer gone, can baseball be far behind?

Spenser, the fictional Boston detective created by Robert Parker, once said, “The worst beer I ever had was wonderful.”

But as of this very minute, the worst beer I ever had is Budweiser. And it’s not wonderful at all.

bkerr@projo.com