Did "Budweiser brands" not get invited to The Great American Beer Festival for the first time since 1982? No, that's not true: A representative from The Great American Beer Festival told Lead Stories that this claim was "incorrect." There is also a sentence in the article making this claim that says that what the satire site posts is not "necessarily real, true, or believable."
The claim appeared in an article published by The Dunning-Kruger Times on March 9, 2024, titled "Budweiser Brands Not Invited to The Great American Beer Festival for the First Time Since 1982" (archived here). It began:
The Great American Beer Festival is the highlight of the summer for the good people of Vandenboom, Wisconsin. Every year, their simple little town transforms like Louden, New Hampshire, or Sturgis, North Dakota during their respective bike weeks, into a bustling hub of drinking, food, and fun. This year, however, the festival known to beer aficionados worldwide as the premier place to be in late August will feature zero Budweiser products.
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
Budweiser Brands Not Invited to The Great American Beer Festival for the First Time Since 1982
The real-life version of the Great American Beer Festival is not in Wisconsin and will not take place in August. Ann Obenchain, the vice president of marketing and communications for the Brewers Association, which sponsors the beer festival, emailed us on March 12, 2024, to say that this claim was "incorrect":
That is incorrect.
The Great American Beer Festival is a 'big tent' event. All brands are welcome to exhibit at the festival. I am referring to the national event. https://www.greatamericanbeerfestival.com/
It looks like this article is referring to a small festival in Wisconsin, which is not associated with us in any way.
Lead Stories could not find any evidence (archived here) that a festival with the same name existed in "Vandenboom, Wisconsin."
According to a PDF file titled "WISCONSIN CITIES AND VILLAGES IN MULTIPLE COUNTIES," found on the government website for the state of Wisconsin, "Vandenboom, Wisconsin" is not a real place. Circling done by Lead Stories:
(Source: Dhs.wisconsin.gov screenshot taken on March 12 16:13:58 2024 UTC)
We could find no evidence to support this claim while searching Google News' index of thousands of credible information sources (archived here).
The article includes quotes from the alleged "Festival Master of Ceremonies Joe Barron" (archived here), "Budweiser spokesperson Sandy Batt" (archived here) and "Anheuser Busch President Augustus Anheuser III" (archived here). Lead Stories sought to verify the legitimacy of these three people and could not find any reliable results to place people with those names in those roles. The names "Joe Barron" and "Sandy Batt" are often seen in Dunning Kruger Times articles as a posthumous tribute to friend's of the site's founder, Christopher Blair. Blair is the creator of the America's Last Line of Defense (ALLOD) network, of which The Dunning-Kruger Times is a subsidiary.
The second to last line of this The Dunning-Kruger Times article reads:
Having changed those kegs, patriots, this reporter can tell you that while we tend to like for people to know that what we post isn't necessarily real, true, or believable, you really have been drinking swill on tap for years.
Lead Stories has reached out to Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Budweiser, and will update this article when we receive a relevant response.
The Dunning-Kruger Times
The Dunning-Kruger Times is a satirical website with an about page (archived here) that has following disclaimer:
About Us
Dunning-Kruger-Times.com is a subsidiary of the 'America's Last Line of Defense' network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News
About Satire
Before you complain and decide satire is synonymous with 'comedy':
sat·ire ˈsaˌtī(ə)r noun: The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site's pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you're still having an issue with that satire thing.
The website is named after the Dunning-Kruger effect, a term from a psychology experiment that describes the phenomenon of being ignorant of one's own ignorance. (That experiment has been disputed by a math professor.)
It is run by self-described liberal troll Christopher Blair.
