News that a Belgium-based, Brazilian-run brewer had launched its expected $46bn bid for Anheuser-Busch was greeted with predictable gloom in St Louis, Missouri, a city whose history has been shaped by the company and its founding family.

The city’s baseball stadium, home to the St Louis Cardinals, is named after the founding Busch family. The brewery, parts of which date back to the mid-19th century, is one of the city’s main tourist attractions, with visitors coming to see its Clydesdale horse stables and old brewing vats.