SACRAMENTO — Anheuser-Busch Cos. said Thursday that it would stop producing and distributing energy drinks that contained both alcohol and caffeine and often other stimulants.
Attorneys general from California and 10 other states announced that the St. Louis-based company, the nation's largest brewer, would reformulate its Tilt and Bud Extra products.
In a legal agreement, Anheuser-Busch promised to remove stimulants, including guarana -- an Amazonian plant from which an herbal compound is derived -- from Tilt and Bud Extra.
Guarana and other natural ingredients, such as ginseng, provide a user with a short-term mental and physical boost.
Critics contend that Tilt, Bud Extra and Miller Brewing Co.'s Sparks look and taste like nonalcoholic energy drinks and put drinkers, particularly young people, at risk of being injured in car accidents or other mishaps.
A 2007 Wake Forest University study involving 4,271 students from 10 universities found that nearly one-quarter of those who had consumed alcohol in the last 30 days had mixed alcohol with energy drinks.
"You're a wide-awake drunk," said George Hacker, a policy advocate with the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington. "You're not aware of the fact you are drunk because you feel so good."
California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown praised Anheuser-Busch for taking "an important step to protect young people from attractive alcohol advertising and marketing." He urged other manufacturers to follow the company's lead.
Milwaukee-based Miller was not part of the settlement with the states. It did not respond to requests for comment on its products or on the Anheuser-Busch agreement.
In a statement, Anheuser-Busch said the settlement with the 11 states "contains no findings" that it "engaged in unlawful behavior or advertised to youths."
Vice President Francine I. Katz said her company was the first brewer to cooperate with attorneys general and consumer groups, which asked brewers and distillers not to sell prepackaged caffeinated alcohol beverages. Anheuser-Busch has a long history of voluntarily working with the state attorneys general, she said, "to encourage adults to drink responsibly."
States that joined with California in the Anheuser-Busch agreement are Arizona, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Mexico, New York and Ohio.
