Now that Anheuser-Busch, Miller and Coors are all foreign-owned, does that mean their beer will finally be booted from Denver's Great American Beer Festival?

The festival was started in 1982 to showcase authentic American beer - mainly full-flavored lagers and ales from small breweries. Over the years, though, the event's organizer welcomed mainstream brewers (and their sponsorship dollars) and even created silly judging categories (American-style specialty lager, aka malt liquor) for them.

Some traditionalists cringe when they see Miller pouring suds side by side with the likes of Russian River or Stoudt's. It's like serving a Big Mac at Morton's.

As for me, I'm just astonished when I see beer aficionados shell out $50 for a festival ticket and then line up for a yummy sample of Coors Light, as if they don't get that back home.

Once InBev gets its Europaws on A-B, the Big 3 will be controlled by fer'ners. Keep the Great American Beer Festival American, I say!

Howcum beer-related Web sites check your age?

Many beer makers require you to type in your birth date before entering, presumably because kids are either:

A. Completely honest while surfing the Internet or,

B. Completely stupid and can't figure out how to enter "1986."

It's not like you can enjoy an adult beverage at a Web site. (Although you can get pretty close with that nifty iPhone app all my drinking buddies got from hottrix.com.)

And it's not like the content is for adults only. I've never seen anything on a beer Web site that I haven't seen during prime time on TV, when children of all ages are watching.

There are no laws requiring Web sites with beer info to keep out kids.

If there were, you couldn't read the Daily News online.

Breweries say they're just being responsible. What a joke.

What they're really doing is giving in to mommies who blame everyone but themselves when their kids come home drunk on Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Speaking of TV, why don't you ever see people drink during beer commercials?

Dirty jokes, half-nekkid chicks, farting horses, Tony Little - they're all OK on network TV. But actually putting a beer bottle to the lips and taking a gulp? How dare you!

Blame the Beer Institute's advertising code, which states that "beer advertising and marketing materials should not depict the act of drinking."

Again, what we have here is beer giving in to neo-Prohibitionist ninnies.