What does beechwood have to do with making the world's most popular beer ?

Beech trees are among the grandest in the forest.
They grow to majestic heights and produce a wood that can easily be made tasteless and adsorbent. We use long, thin strips of the wood in the exclusive Beechwood Ageing for Budweiser Beer.
Before Prohibition, the "beechwood method" of ageing was in wide use. All American brewers except Anheuser-Busch have long since abandoned it.
Why then does Anheuser-Busch consider Beechwood Ageing to be so important for Budweiser? Simply this: No other process can provide the finished, crisp taste that makes Budweiser . . . the King of Beers.
Just a few other brewers, in fact, even bother with second fermentation, the stage at which beechwood is used by Anheuser-Busch. This important second fermentation brings a completely natural carbonation to Budweiser, giving this premium beer its famous liveliness. Only the brewers of Budweiser, though, lay a deep lattice of beechwood strips across the bottom of the ageing tanks. The chips attract and hold particles of yeast. This produces a good natural clarity during this important ageing period.
More than 1 1/2 million pounds of air-dried beechwood chips arrive at Anheuser-Busch breweries in huge bales throughout the year.
Beechwood Ageing does cost more. But that is one important reason why no other beer matches Budweiser.
Certainly there are other things besides Beechwood Ageing and our second fermentation process that add to the unique flavor and golden clarity of Budweiser. Our use of the finest brewer's rice, the traditional Anheuser-Busch practice of buying only the best materials and equipment, the skill and know-how gained in more than one hundred years of brewing, and our stubborn insistence on brewing Budweiser in a deliberate, exclusive manner because we believe it's the only way to produce Budweiser ? the beer that more and more people buy and know is worth every penny of its price.