My husband went into a store and tried to steal a case of beer. He gave the beer then ran out the store but dropped it cause the store clerk started chasing him. Now they saying that a robbery.

Sounds like robbery to me. Robbery is a crime against the person, because a victim is present and therefore there is an implicit threat of force. Burglary, on the other hand, as well as simple theft, are crimes against property because usually no victim is present, or at least aware of the crime at the time.

But one would have to look at the particular statue for whichever state it is, to be sure.

The actual charge or name of it, will depend totally on where this is, in the US, each state has its own "name" but yes in general it is robbery, if he had a weapon on him, even if not shown, it could even go up to arm robbery,