But what about the beer?

The partitioning of Belgium between its French and Flemish-speaking regions came swiftly.

At least a TV station wanted its audience to believe that on Wednesday, when it broadcast a fake news report of a revolution splitting the country into Flanders and Wallonia. Its royal family, long hailed as the glue holding the nation together, fled by plane. Footage of rioters outside the Belgium parliament convinced ever more people that the schism was genuine.

Of course, in the spirit of Orson Welles, the station waited until the program's first 30 minutes passed before letting viewers in on the hoax.

Few Belgian powerbrokers saw humor in the program. Nor was the royal family amused. I know I wasn't, even though I didn't see the program. My concern, of course, was not so much for the country's welfare, but what it meant for its beer supply.

For most Americans - if they actually find it on a map -Belgium is just a little blob between France and Germany that got marched across during a few World Wars.

For beer lovers, it's the center of the universe, a bountiful land with more endemic beer styles than any other place on Earth.

Disruption of supply could probe healthy to our livers, but some of us cannot do without a bottle of Chimay aging in the pantry.

Once I got past the self-created beer scare, I saw the hoax's humor.

So, any still think a War of the Worlds-esque program can no longer induce panic or shake up people's lives in an instant?

Once again we learn that basing a hoax so close to reality makes it all the more believable.

If anyone outside of Europe - plus expatriates and beer snobs, of course - cares about end of the Belgium.