Last week we learned that global beer titan Anheuser-Busch InBev trademarked Chicago’s area code, as well as fifteen other cities’ digits, to hawk its newly acquired Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat Beer to a national drinkership. This week word comes that Philly’s 215, as celebrated in song by the Roots in their 1999 classic “Dynamite!,” was one of the area codes gobbled up by the corporation. We’re not sure how all this sits with beer drinkers in St. Louis and Phoenix, where Anheuser-Busch InBev also snatched up area codes were, but here it seems rather naive (or in biblical terms, a little like David and Goliath recklessness) for the brewing giant to co-opt the identity of a city where countless bars proudly adhere to a “no crap on tap” policy, in order to sell it’s mass produced craft beer clone. [Inquirer]
