As we reported earlier today, CEO August Busch IV and his board plan to turn down InBev's $65/share bid for Anheuser-Busch. The Budweiser brewer, which has ignored the offer for the past two weeks, will formally reject the courtship of Carlos Brito while announcing its own strategic plan.

Anheuser-Busch will cut at least $500 million in costs, largely in marketing, and is considering the sale of its Busch Gardens parks. The cuts to be proposed will largely mirror those planned by InBev, and Busch will have to make a tough but critical sell since Anheuser has practically no takeover defenses.

Warren Buffett, whose 4.9% stake in Anheuser is larger than the Busch family's, chatted with Becky Quick yesterday to deny reports that he had an opinion about the merger, let alone that he had met with August Busch in St. Louis. Buffett remains publicly an agnostic about the offer, calling the upcoming fight "an interesting spectator sport."

August Busch earlier made a proposal to acquire Modelo Group as a means to make Anheuser too big for InBev to swallow. Anheuser already owns a majority of the Mexican brewer behind swill-grade Corona, but the controlling stake is in the hands of Antonino Fernandez, the ninety -year-old patriarch whose family runs Modelo. Modelo has reportedly refused any talk of surrendering control and has twisted the knife by talking with InBev behind Bud's back; American news reports have shifted their description of Modelo from "Mexican partner" to "fiercely nationalistic."

Matt Blunt, governor of Missouri, and both of the state's senators have made a bipartisan plea for an antitrust review to block the sale. DealBreaker's on-site research at Anheuser's St. Louis brewery discovered that Budweiser gained its light-tasting rice-and-barley mix from World War I rationing. While this exonerates Anheuser from the charge of chintzing out on the mix, it further discredits the merits of political meddling in beer and lets us blame Woodrow Wilson for the sorry state of American lager.

-Negra Modelo aficionado Andrew