Brito, left, and Slay

Yesterday, after the city’s iconic brewery was swallowed up by a Belgian rival, Mayor Francis Slay had only kind words for the new boss, InBev chief Carlos Brito.

“I think that St. Louis is going to like him — and I am looking forward to working with him,” Slay said, noting that the beer executive has an “easy charm.”

The changes that will come with the merger, Slay said Tuesday, “means that thousands of St. Louisans will now be sharing one of the largest infusions of wealth into this region in our history.”

“Given the state of the national economy, it probably could not come at a better time,” Slay added.

Those comments, though, are much different than what Slay said after a phone call from Brito in June, when it first became clear that Anheuser-Busch could be on its last drops.

“The things he was saying were the things that, obviously, you want to hear,” Slay said at the time. “But what I told him was: How can I believe you? How do we know this is really going to happen?”

He cited the example of Federated Department Stores, the owner of Macy’s, which purchased the previously St. Louis-based May Co. and its Famous-Barr chain.

“We were told that Federated was going to put Macy’s Midwest headquarters here in St. Louis,” Slay recalled. “They did do that. They put the headquarters here. Now, two years later, it’s gone.”

Most of all, Slay emphasized he did not support InBev’s acquisition of the King of Beers.

Said Slay: “Cannot support that, will not support it, have not supported it.”

Of course, nobody at Anheuser-Busch or St. Louis has much of a choice now.