In Sad but True News, Metallica Partners With Budweiser

In the latest example of bands teaming up with breweries to have their own beer, macro-metal band Metallica has joined forces with macro-brewery Budweiser. Unlike other bands, though, Metallica will only have special black Budweiser cans—the brewery will not be brewing the band a special beer (which may or may not be for the best).
 

For some reason, the band is using the cans to commemorate two recent shows in Quebec City, and handed out free cans to concert-goers on September 14 and 16. Labatt brewed the beer and canned it, and it appears to only be available in Canada—which is no great loss to the US. The pairing should work well for Metallica, who will be able to continue on without any threat to their 20-year run of mediocrity (and sometimes downright awfulness).

Hopefully any fans who seek out the beer will do so for the singular purpose of displaying the cans on their mantle or with their other Metallica memorabilia, and won’t search it out for consumption. And while people will surely make plenty of jokes about Metallica’s watered-down brand of metal teaming with Budweiser’s watered-down brand of beer, there is one clear upside to this whole situation: the band was finally able to come up with a worse collaboration than the album they made with Lou Reed. And maybe that was the whole point.