Also none free to Busch Entertainment employees any more:

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stor...05/daily16.html

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/...15?OpenDocument

Aw that's too bad. It was one of the nice perks to the Bush parks.

Plain and simple this was a cost cutting move. Its a shame that they felt the need to curtail that perk, but with the current state of the economy, it is understandable. Remember that InBev had originally wanted to get rid of all non-core assets such as Busch Entertainment. They likely could not find a buyer in the current economy willing to pay what they thought that division was worth.

Cost cutting alone or is it step one to delinking the parks from the beer company?

That could be a step toward trying to separate the Busch brand from the parks, in an attempt to prove to prospective buyers that the parks are not reliant on the Busch brand to be successful.