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Kate Richardson, bartender at First Ward House, pours beer for customers Tuesday night. First Ward serves both Budweiser and InBev products.

There’s a new batch of concern brewing at the local bar.

Be it a small-town tavern, a working-class dive or an urban cocktail bar, the conversation always turns to Budweiser.

When Belgium-based InBev purchased Anhueser-Busch for $52 billion last week, a groundswell of patriotic outrage was felt anywhere the Great American lager is served. St. Louis was the epicenter, but the rumble has spread to St. Joseph as well.

O’Malley Beverage distributes Anhueser-Busch products in St. Joseph and the surrounding area. Operations Manager Bruce Nichols said that current distribution networks will remain in place. The Budweiser products on local store shelves still will come from the brewery in St. Louis.

InBev has its own product line, but the buyout likely won’t add any new beers to Mr. Nichols’ delivery list. O’Malley has distributed InBev products like Stella Artois and Beck’s for about two years — since Anhueser-Busch took over InBev’s distribution in the United States.

“I don’t know if there’s going to be a push to distribute more of the InBev products. We haven’t heard much,” Mr. Nichols said. “I don’t foresee any changes at all.”

Jose Martinez, a life-long Anhueser-Busch guy, said he thinks InBev would be crazy to change anything about Budweiser.

“If it looks the same, goes down the same, tastes the same, I’ll drink it,” he said. “Just don’t change anything.”

Mr. Martinez sat on the porch at the First Ward House with a cold Bud Light on Wednesday evening. He’ll stick with his beer of choice, but he’s not happy about the sale.

“They were a trademark for beer makers in the United States,” Mr. Martinez said. “It was utterly wrong.”

His wife, Melinda, added that it was almost impossible to find American products anymore.

Anhueser-Busch isn’t the first American brewery to sell to foreign interests. Just look at the competition.

Miller Lite is brewed by Miller Brewing Company from Milwaukee. However, Miller is owned by a larger company called SABMiller — the 'SAB’ is short for South African Breweries. In a confusing twist, the company isn’t based in South Africa, but in London.

So what about Coors Light? You can’t get more American than the Rocky Mountains. Well, the mountains extend into Canada, and so does Coors — also known as MolsonCoors — with joint headquarters in Denver and Montreal. If that’s not enough, MolsonCoors and SABMiller agreed in 2007 to combine their North American marketing efforts under the name MillerCoors. Those London-based South Africans are everywhere.

That leaves one more option for Americans who want a blue collar (or Blue Ribbon) beer: Pabst Brewing Co. Pabst closed its last brewery in 2001. The company resides in Illinois, but all the beer is contract-brewed by companies like Miller. But Miller is foreign owned, remember?

After sorting through all the confusion, a beer drinker has to search the import section to find the largest American-owned American-brewed option left. Boston Beer Company, makers of Samuel Adams Boston Lager.

The idea of a microbrew at the top makes Bob Garvey and his wife laugh. They were surprised, like many others, to hear that the Miller Lite at their table was brewed by a foreign company.

They shook their heads and, in a bit of gallows humor, speculated at the changes an overseas company could bring to the American beer industry.

“What next? Will the Clydesdales be replaced with Belgian Draft Horses? There’s the real question,” Mr. Garvey said.

Business reporter Clinton Thomas can be reached at clintonthomas@npgco.com.