The tussle has ended for superiority in the world beer brewing business. And I've had a front row seat for it.

Really. Front row seat.

I live across the street from Anheuser-Busch, the self-proclaimed King of Beers. It's outside my bedroom window, my living room window, my front door.

On any given morning, I see the Clydesdales exercising at the end of a horse trainer's reins, walking loops outside the corral that is on the brewer's headquarters campus.

I see the Dalmatians, famous for their perch on the old-time beer wagon. They race full-blaze ahead, roaring at me, my wife, our two Labrador

Retrievers as we walk by. I sometimes tell "Paris" and "Britney" to shut the hell up and stop being prima donna bitches. They don't listen.

And I often see the streetcar-style buses dropping load after load of tourists who've come to the main Anheuser-Busch gate, ready to view the innards of America's No. 1 beermaker - get free samples.

And all of that has ended, at least as we know it.

For weeks television news crews have pitched camp almost daily on our corners, awaiting the latest developments in the beer wars.

And we locals have wondered, will A-B, as St. Louisans know the beer HQ, fall to foreign corporations as Coors (Molson) and Miller (South African Brewers) have?

Now we know. Actually, I suppose we always did. Money rules this world, right? But I'm a hopeful cynic. I assumed they'd sell out, but I hoped for once that good would prevail, that Wealthy wouldn't have to become Wealthier. Of course, I was wrong. Wealthy has become wealthier - yet again.

Now will Busch Stadium, famous for the St. Louis Cardinals - the second winningest Major League Baseball team with 10 World Series pennants - be changed to InBev Ballpark, or maybe Stella Artois Field?

Will we no longer call out to the beer vendor, "Bud, here!" Instead, having to stand stiff and proper as we oblige the dear fellow for a Stella Artois?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But here in St. Louis we'll always know that's what is has amounted to.

For me, this beer business is not just about names changing, or a patriotic fervor that washes over me for something so American.

It's the knowledge that when I tilt a 12-ouncer from Anheuser-Busch and I spot the label's proclamation - brewed in St. Louis, Mo. - that I can stand up, look out my window and know exactly from where my beer came.

It's that, on any given day, I can inhale the yeasty aroma of Budweiser hops while I work in my yard or when I take a jog through the neighborhood.

It's - and I can't believe I'm about to say this - that I will miss the nuisance that Paris and Britney the Budweiser Dalmatians have meant around our neighborhood. They may still exist over there for some time to come, but their kingdom's significance has severely diminished.

What is the mascot of InBev, anyway?