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Taplines — Arts
Taplines

It’s modern American history, one beer at a time! Join VinePair contributing editor and columnist Dave Infante for Taplines, a weekly interview series with brewing icons, industry insiders, and outspoken experts about the United States’ most beloved and best-selling beers. Bros discussing their favorite IPAs, this ain’t. Taplines is a mix of journalism, history, and beer that you won’t find anywhere else but the VinePair Podcast Network.

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Copyright: © VinePair

Latest Episodes:

How Anheuser-Busch InBev Built Its Biggest Brand of the 21st Century Nov 19, 2024

Kimberly Clements, co-founder and managing partner of Pints LLC, joins Taplines today to talk about Anheuser-Busch's introduction of a little beer called Michelob Ultra, which August Busch III personally tapped her family's Arizona distributorship to help test out in 2002 in advance of a national release. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Meet the Middle Tier's Master Matchmaker Nov 05, 2024

Joe Thompson, the founder and president of Independent Beverage Group, is a five-decade drinks business veteran, and one of the most prolific brokers of middle-tier mergers and acquisitions in the United States. He joins Taplines today to talk about how Coors’ “silver” network and Miller’s “blue” network became Molson Coors’ “blue/silver” network — an esoteric saga he knows well, given he was involved in many of those transformative deals in the '80s and '90s. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Oral History of the "F*CK AB-INBEV" Shirt Oct 22, 2024

Steve Luke, founder and head brewer of Seattle’s Cloudburst Brewing, joins Taplines today for a freewheeling conversation about an iconic moment — arguably, the iconic moment — of the 2018 Great American Beer Festival, which he single-handedly engineered both literally and figuratively with the help of a DIY t-shirt that read “F*CK AB-INBEV” across the front. There’s a backstory there, more so than the standard David vs. Goliath dynamic that was popular to describe the relationship between craft brewers and macro brewers last decade. Tune in for the full scoop, as told by the man himself. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Cross-Category Battle for the Future of Hard Tea Oct 08, 2024

This week on Taplines, we're going cross-category with our pond-crossing pal from Cocktail College: VinePair's managing editor, Tim McKirdy. Tune in for a genre-breaking conversation about how the hard seltzer boom gave way to a bust that cleared the board for Twisted Tea’s decades-in-the-making moment in the sun — and paved the runway that vodka-based interloper and VinePair Next Wave 2024 Rising Drinks Brand of the Year finalist Surfside is currently speeding down. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Road to Beer History Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions Sep 24, 2024

We’re putting our normal Taplines format on the shelf today for a very special reunion episode of sorts with journalists Kate Bernot of Sightlines, and Jess Infante of Brewbound, to talk about two turning points in the national suds saga. Some of you listening may know the three of us as the Beer Byliners, the name of a Twitter Space (man, remember those?!) that we hosted in the early days of the pandemic. Well, we’re getting the gang back together today, and you’re coming with. Stay tuned for a chat about the unveiling of the Brewers Association’s Ozymandian “20% by 2020” mantra, the dark side of Cleveland’s infamous, Stroh's-fueled 10-Cent Beer Night catastrophe, and much more. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Shattering Homebrewing’s Pint-Glass Ceiling Sep 10, 2024

Today on Taplines, meet Annie Johnson. She’s a longtime homebrewer, the self-avowed Queen of Beer, and an old source of mine from way back. Annie has been brewing her own beer since the mid-’90s, and winning first-place ribbons for ‘em nearly as long. The woman has enough these days to make a damn cape out of ‘em — and she did. We talked about that, and so much more. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Inside Anheuser-Busch’s "Microbrewing" Skunkworks Aug 27, 2024

Like any good parable, the "David and Goliath" self-mythology of the American craft brewing industry in the '80s and '90s was illuminating, compelling — and maybe a bit reductive, too. In Episodes 33 and 34, we examined this us-versus-them dynamic from the perspective of one of the “thems,” Keith Villa, who created the Blue Moon Brewing Company from within the Coors colossus in 1995. Today, we’re coming at it once again through the eyes of New Realm Brewing Co. cofounder and brewmaster Mitch Steele, who did a substantial stretch, semi-concurrent to Villa’s at Coors, at Big Beer’s biggest and baddest "Goliath" of all: Missouri’s pre-InBev Anheuser-Busch. After starting his career in a California brewpub, Mitch eventually wound up in St. Louis towards the end of the 20th century on a skunkworks-style R&D team tasked with brewing up answers to those pesky “microbrews” that would somehow satisfy distributors in the mighty red network, the American drinking public, and August Busch the Third himself — no mean feat. Would creative extensions on the premium Michelob line do the trick? What about a new brand named for A-B’s hop farm in northern Idaho? You’ll have to listen on to find out. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Stone Brewing Dropped a $56-Million Stunner on Molson Coors Aug 13, 2024

Today, we’re joined by the one and only Bianca Bruno, an editor of the venerable trade publication Beer Business Daily, who was there, live and in-person, to cover the landmark trademark trial between San Diego’s Stone Brewing Company and macrobrewer Molson Coors over an allegedly infringing Keystone Light rebrand. The federal jury trial yielded a shocking verdict, and what it revealed about the state of Stone’s business would set the stage for the once vehemently independent firm’s sell-out to Sapporo later that year. Don’t forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Saving Narragansett, New England’s Beloved Legacy Lager Jul 30, 2024

After trading hands several times and closing its Rhode Island facility to contract brew, the Narragansett brand was eventually scooped up by a group of investors in 2005. With hands-on experience marketing beverage alcohol from creating Hendrick's Gin and Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, Quaker City Mercantile founder and 'Gansett investor Steven Grasse set about rebranding the flagship legacy lager and the rest of the company's portfolio for a future befitting its storied past. This is the story of how that went. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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When Bud Light First Got Fruity Jul 16, 2024

Our guest this episode is Jeff Musial, a bev-alc industry veteran who was working in research and development for new products at Anheuser-Busch in the mid-Aughts. This was a heady moment for the St. Louis giant; Bud Light volumes would peak in 2008, the same year the Brazilian-led Belgian outfit InBev would complete its hostile takeover of the firm. But before any of that, Jeff and his team would launch a new line-extension of the A-B flagship, Bud Light Lime, that cracked the code on flavor-forward fruited light lagers for the United States’ leading purveyor of ‘em. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Cold IPA Got Hot Jul 02, 2024

In 2018, Gold Dot Beer’s Kevin Davey was working as the brewmaster of Portland Oregon’s Wayfinder Beer when he hit upon the idea of brewing an India Pale Ale with lager yeast. Hazy IPAs had yet to consolidate their grasp as the dominant substyle of the traditional West Coast variety, and this was the age of tinkering; in fact, Davey says his experimental brew was an answer of sorts to Kim Sturdevant’s Brut IPA invention in San Francisco during that same era. (Check out the episode directly prior to this one for that story.) Davey called his crisp, clear, dry-hopped creation “Cold IPA” — a nod to its lager-like production process, and the temperature at which it's meant to be enjoyed. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Why Brut IPA Never Hit It Big Jun 18, 2024

Towards the end of the Teens, Kim Sturdavant was brewing at Social Kitchen & Brewery in San Francisco when he developed a new kind of India Pale Ale. He christened his crisp, dry varietal Hop Champagne, and christened the promising new substyle "Brut IPA," a nod to the sparkling wine that this new beer resembled. Brewers in the Bay Area loved it, and drinkers seemed to, too, so Sturdavant had high hopes for the substyle’s future. But just a few years later, Brut IPAs rarely earn mention from craft brewing enthusiasts (let alone casual drinkers) and if they do, it’s often in the form of a punchline. What happened? Well, that’s what Sturdavant joins Taplines today to talk through. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Controversial Rise of Big, Honkin' Pastry Stouts Jun 04, 2024

Pastry stouts — sweet, saccharine, indulgent beers built on flavors more common to a bakery than a brewery — emerged towards the end of last decade as a coveted, if occasionally maligned, pseudo-style of craft beer. Many trace their rise to a southern California brewer named Derek Gallanosa (currently: GOAL. Brewing, previously Moksa Brewing and Abnormal Beer Co.), who joins Taplines today to to recount the pastry stout’s humble beginnings and reflect on its sweet, surprising success with the American drinking public since. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Inside Story of "Black Is Beautiful" Stout, One of the Biggest Cause Beers Ever Brewed May 21, 2024

In the early months of the pandemic, Marcus Baskerville was working as the head brewer at Weathered Souls Brewing Company, the brewery he co-founded in San Antonio, when a police officer five states away murdered George Floyd. Marcus, who would go on to become a founding member of the National Black Brewers Association, had an idea to galvanize the industry and raise money for police brutality reform. What emerged was Black Is Beautiful, a stout recipe that would eventually be brewed by more than 1,600 breweries across the country (and 22 countries around the world.) The beer raised millions of dollars for charity, and provided a blueprint for cause beers to come. This is its story—and Marcus's story, too. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Budweiser's Iconic 'Whassup!' Ad Went Down May 07, 2024

In 1999, Vinny Warren was working at Chicago ad firm DDB and on the hunt for a hit idea for a Super Bowl spot for his client, Budweiser. The King of Beers was still selling better than Bud Light at that point, but just barely, and August Busch IV had been handed the reigns to rejuvenate the flagging flagship with a fresh new creative vision. As it turned out, Warren had just the thing. The short comedy sketch he stumbled across would eventually become the basis for "Whassup!", one of the most celebrated and successful beer ads of all time. It didn’t stanch Bud’s slide, because nothing could. But the ad and its follow-ups entered the phrase firmly into the American cultural vocabulary and was elected to the advertising industry’s Hall of Fame a few short years later. Here's how it all went down. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Angry Orchard and the Fight for Hard Cider's Soul Apr 23, 2024

Joining Taplines today is Ryan Burk, the former head cider maker of Angry Orchard Hard Cider. These days, he’s making cider under his own label in upstate New York, working as a co-founder of the beverage innovation firm Feel Goods Company, and serving the Cider Institute of North America as a founding board member. But midway through last decade, Ryan was working at Michigan’s Virtue Cider when Boston Beer Company tapped him to lead production on its in-house hard cider brand, which was then making one out of every two barrels of cider sold in the US. Angry Orchard's legacy in the category is contentious: is it a vital gateway that led to broader hard cider acceptance, or a millstone holding back what cider could be in the American drinking imagination? Both? Neither? Listen on, listener. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Beer Boosted the First Wine Cooler Boom Apr 09, 2024

Nothing exists in a vacuum, Taplines listener, and beer certainly doesn’t. When Stuart Bewley and his cofounder dreamed up the idea for California Cooler, single-serve fermented-fruit-based ready-to-drink in the mid-70s, they couldn't have known that it would inspire knockoffs from heavyweights in the wine industry (e.g., E. & J. Gallo’s Bartles and Jaymes) and the beer industry, too (Miller’s Matilda Bay, for example.) And get this: Bewley says the long-running boycott of a certain big-on-the-west-coast brewer was instrumental in getting California Cooler onto the trucks of distributors who otherwise might’ve not had anything to do with it. Nothing exists in a vacuum, after all. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Craft Brewing's "White Dudes with Beards" Dilemma Mar 26, 2024

In the mid-2010s, J Jackson-Beckham, PhD was an academic with a homebrewing habit, blogging incisively about what she called “the unbearable whiteness of brewing.” Her deep expertise and singular voice eventually caught the eye of the Brewers Association, which tapped her to serve as the trade group’s first-ever “Diversity Ambassador” in 2018. Today, "Dr. J" joins Taplines to reflect on that moment — not only a pivotal one in her own career but also in the trajectory of the craft beer industry writ large as brewers big and small began trying to square their professed values with their business practices (and ideally, bring more paying customers to their taprooms, too.) That work is ongoing: shortly after we recorded this episode in late 2023, she joined the BA full-time as its director of social impact. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Beginning of Goose Island’s Game-Changing Barrel-Aging Program Mar 12, 2024

Joining Taplines today is Seth Gross, a former Goose Island Brewing Co. brewer who was at the meeting where Goose Island then-brewmaster Greg Hall and the late, legendary master distiller Booker Noe, of the Beam bourbon dynasty, first came up with the idea to barrel age a beer, how they did it… and what happened once rank-and-file drinkers got their hands on the final product. Some three decades later, Gross is still barrel-aging his own beers at Durham, North Carolina’s Bull City Burger and Brewery — just one of the hundreds, or more likely thousands of brewers who have taken up the BA gospel since. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Wolfgang Puck and the Brewpub Conundrum Feb 27, 2024

Today on Taplines, we’re joined by none other than Wolfgang Puck for a candid, clear-eyed look at how his Eureka brewpub — “one of the loudest salvos in elevating the role of craft beer in dining,” as Tom Acitelli put it in his 2013 book, the Audacity of Hops — met such a quick and unceremonious demise in early '90s Los Angeles… and what Chef learned from its collapse. Here’s a hint: when the kitchen is clicking but the brewery business ain’t, a brewpub is headed for trouble. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Rise and Fall of the Beloved Beer Ball Feb 13, 2024

In the mid-’70s, as the Light Beer Wars were starting to heat up, a family-run brewery in central New York called F.X. Matt — one of the nation’s oldest, and still running to this very day — came up with a wild new packaging format for its beers. It was bold. It was bizarre. It was… balls? That's right. Big, translucent plastic spheres full of 5.16 gallons of Matt’s Premium Lager. Part keg party, part party trick, F.X. Matt’s beer balls were all the rage in the Eighties, and soon drew competition from local rivals and national heavyweights alike. Joining Taplines today to talk about beer balls and so much more is fourth-generation Matt and president of the brewery that bears his family name Fred Matt. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Remembering Ice Cube’s Iconic, Infamous St. Ides Rhymes Jan 30, 2024

Joining Taplines today is Jacinta Howard, a veteran culture and music writer and editor in Atlanta, to talk about a very specific, very special, and very star-studded "sponsored content" series that hit the airwaves back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, long before "sponsored content" was even a thing. St. Ides malt liquor first arrived on store shelves in 1987, but it wasn’t until the brand’s parent company hired the iconic DJ Pooh to enlist a who’s-who of blue-chip rappers — from Ice Cube to the Wu-Tang Clan — in the production of original mixtapes and music videos about the “Crooked I” that it began to take off. And when it did, sales followed — but so did the controversy that would eventually bring St. Ides’ breakout #sponcon project to an end. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Left Hand Bottled America's First Nitro Stout Jan 16, 2024

When Left Hand Brewing opened for business outside of Denver in the early '90s, the plan wasn’t to become known nationwide as “the milk stout brewery” or “the nitro brewery,” and certainly not “the nitro milk stout brewery.” But when it introduced its chocolatey, none-too-heavy milk stout in the Aughts, people loved it, and especially the silky smooth nitro draft pour. Co-founder / CEO Eric Wallace and the Left Hand team started wondering: "Hey, if Guinness is able to package nitro beers, couldn’t we?" Nobody else in America had figured out to do widget-free nitro in the bottle, but that didn't stop them milk stout boys. They succeeded, and forevermore Left Hand would be synonymous with the hard-poured, inky-black, velvety stout. The rest was history—history we discuss with Wallace himself on this week's episode. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Non-Alcoholic Beer Got Cool Dec 12, 2023

Athletic Brewing Company wasn’t the first non-alcoholic beer brand, not by a long shot. But it was the first to successfully cross the flavors and aesthetics of the craft beer segment consistently, and at scale. Its considerable success since first hitting the market in mid-2018 has helped open up horizons for millions of drinkers — and today, co-founders Bill Shufelt and John Walker are here to talk about how it all went down. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Coors Capitalized on Craft Brewing's Boom Dec 05, 2023

Returning to Taplines today for the second installment of our two-part episode about Blue Moon's historic, controversial rise is Keith Villa, the former Coors brewer who created the iconic, top-selling Belgian-style witbier in the mid-'90s. We discuss the brand’s soaring success after its rocky first few years in the Rocky Mountains — and how once Blue Moon found its footing in Coors' portfolio, it started to face criticism from some members of the craft brewing industry, who painted the beer as an interloper to “the movement” that Villa had considered himself a part of. (This is Part 2; make sure to check out Part 1 in your podcast feed if you haven't yet.) Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Blue Moon Rising Nov 28, 2023

Joining Taplines today to talk about Blue Moon’s historic, controversial rise, is Keith Villa, the brewer who created the original recipe for the Belgian-style beer at Coors after earning his PhD in brewing from the University of Brussels. From the corporate offices in Golden, Colorado, to the ballpark brewhouse where he perfected the brand’s soon-to-be-smash hit recipe, to the bars nationwide where he tried to get bartenders to actually serve the stuff, Villa says Blue Moon’s success was anything but preordained by its corporate backing — contrary to what its critics argued. Let's talk about it. (This is Part 1 of a two-part episode about Blue Moon; Part 2 will appear directly following this one in the feed one week later.) Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Finance Bros Discovered Hazy IPAs Nov 21, 2023

Joining Taplines today is longtime beverage-alcohol journalist, VinePair writer at large, and author of the hotly anticipated forthcoming book "Dusty Booze," Aaron Goldfarb, to discuss Other Half Brewing Company's meteoric rise from humble beginnings to coveted hype brewery. Having found himself a few times in the line that formed outside the brewery on release days, Aaron witnessed firsthand a shift in the Brooklyn brewery's clientele and cachet as New York City’s contemporary masters of the universe — finance bros — became enthralled by the drinkability, variety, and most importantly scarcity of the brewery’s liquid wares. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Modern Beer Business’s First Black Business League Nov 14, 2023

Not to get all political on here, but historically speaking, Black people have not exactly been welcomed into the halls of power in the American beer industry. There are a dozen well-documented reasons for that, many of which stem less from endemic characteristics of beer or brewing than from the systemic racism baked into this country’s laws and institutions. But to this day, less than 1 percent of the country's ~10,000 breweries are owned by Black people — a sobering state given Black people represent around 13 percent of the overall population in the United States. So the National Black Brewers Association has its work cut out for it. Joining the show today is three-decade beverage-industry veteran Kevin Asato, the NB2A's executive director, to talk about the newly formed trade association's historic debut at the 2023 Craft Brewers Conference, the unique challenges its constituents face, and how the org hopes to tackle them. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Schlitz's Epic Self-Inflicted Downfall Nov 07, 2023

In the early '60s, a fellow named Bob Uihlein took the reins at what was then a brewery second only to the mighty Anheuser-Busch in the American beer business pantheon—the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Schlitz was known nationwide as “the beer that made Milwaukee famous,” and an absolute heavyweight of the day. But under Uihlein’s hackneyed, hamfisted, and otherwise ill-advised direction, both its liquid and its liquidity would be in irrecoverable disarray less than two decades later. Joining the show today for her THIRD Taplines appearance is the brilliant historian and writer Maureen Ogle, author of the vital history Ambitious Brew, to talk about how, exactly, Uihlein & co. erased a century’s worth of Schlitz’s industry-leading, Milwaukee-born brewing legacy in the '60s and '70s. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Brewer-Activists Popped One of the South's Worst ABV Caps Oct 31, 2023

Idiosyncrasies abound in this country's state-by-state approach to booze regulation, and South Carolina is home to plenty of 'em. Which is why, in 2005, Jaime Tenny — who would go on to open North Charleston’s COAST Brewing Company with her husband, David Merritt — took a cue from craft brewing colleagues in North Carolina and started Pop the Cap SC, a grassroots organization bent on increasing the state's then-limit on beers' alcohol by volume. This is a wonky one, Taplines listener, a tale of scrappy outsiders making noise in the the provincial halls of power in the Deep South, all in the name of bigger, better, beer. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Behind the Scenes with Budweiser's Famous Frogs Oct 24, 2023

In 1994, the mighty pre-InBev Anheuser-Busch made a somewhat shocking decision to do a comedic ad for its flagship brand. This was a big deal — up until then, Budweiser’s ads hewed to the heartland with sincere, wholesome, Americana themes and tunes. But when the firm’s longtime hometown ad agency came up with an idea for Bud's 1995 Super Bowl spot that called for animatronic frogs, August Busch III didn’t laugh them out of his office — he gave it the green light. Thus began the production process of one of Adweek’s “most iconic alcohol ads of all time,” built on the strength of three simple syllables: BUD-WEIS-ER. Today on Taplines, we're talking to Tom Woodard, the current creative director of Nashville's On the Avenue who in the mid-'90s found himself voicing Frog #1 in one of the most beloved beer ads of all time. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Who Invented Pumpkin Beer? Oct 17, 2023

If you didn’t know any better, you might assume that the whole pumpkin beer “thing” was an offshoot of Starbucks’ pumpkin-spiced-latte phenomenon. But it most certainly is not. The PSL only hit the American drinking public in 2003. Pumpkin beers, on the other hand, are typically dated to 1983 or thereabouts, shortly after one Bill Owens opened Buffalo Bill’s Brewery in Hayward California. It was there that Owens — a former award-winning photojournalist and future founder of the American Distilling Institute — pioneered the autumnal brew, based on a historical recipe attributed to George Washington, creating one of craft brewing’s most enduring calendrical calling cards in the process. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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When America's Biggest Import Went Dutch Oct 10, 2023

Heineken's longstanding dominance as the top-selling import in post-Prohibition America was thanks in large part to the efforts of an American importer, New York's Van Munching and Company. But by the end of the 80s, the Dutch brewer had decided it wanted to bring its stateside operations in-house, which gave third-generation Philip Van Munching front-row seats to the Heineken brand's corporate handoff. We're talking Amstel Light, Heineken Light, and agida aplenty. (This is Part 2 of a Taplines two-parter. Part 1 will appear directly after this in your feed.) Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Yuppie-fication of Heineken Oct 03, 2023

For most of the 20th century, Heineken was the country's top imported beer by far, and by the 80s, thanks to decades of empire-building effort by its third-party American importer, New York's Leo Van Munching and Company, the Dutch brand commanded prestige and premium pricing Stateside. When Philip Van Munching joined the family firm in the 80s, his challenge was figuring out a way to market Heineken's mystique to modern drinkers without cheapening the brand by pandering to the era's prominent mainstream trendsetters ("yuppies," young urban professionals) all while challengers like Corona and Samuel Adams began to complicate the narrative. (This is Part 1 of a Taplines two-parter. Part 2 will appear directly after this in your feed.) Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The New Yorker's Gift to Craft Brewing Sep 26, 2023

The year: 2008. The magazine: The New Yorker. The story: “A Better Brew: The Rise of Extreme Beer.” Was it the most important magazine piece ever written about craft brewing? Those who know of what they speak, like Tom Acitelli, author of 2013's The Audacity of Hops, certainly thought so. Today we're joined by the author of that seminal New Yorker feature, Burkhard Bilger, to discuss the the idea, the execution, and the legacy of “A Better Brew.” This one is for the media heads, the history heads, and the Bilger heads, too. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Writing the PBR Brand Bible Sep 19, 2023

This is the second installment of a Taplines two-parter about the early days of PBR’s cultural and commercial renaissance after the turn of the 21st century. Our guest for these back-to-back episodes is Neal Stewart, a former Pabst Brewing Company marketer who spent the first half of the Aughts working on the firm’s flagship beer. In this episode, we'll discuss how early signs of life for the nearly defunct brand gave way to a full-blown national phenomenon — and how Stewart and co. carefully fanned the flames from Pabst Brewing Co.'s headquarters in San Antonio. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Hipsters First Found PBR Sep 12, 2023

Diehard Taplines listeners already know we're fascinated by Pabst Blue Ribbon's ascendance last decade as the ultimate insider beer for the United States' various outsiders' scenes, thanks to our earlier episode with Steve "Stix" Nilsen, who worked on the Blue Ribbon brand throughout the 2010s. But today, we kick off part one of a Taplines two-parter with former Pabst marketer Neal Stewart that’ll function as a prequel to that episode, going deep into PBR’s unlikely, inimitable rise in the early Aughts — not just as a value-priced adjunct lager, but as the red, white, and blue face of an emerging moment in the hipsterized American zeitgeist, for better or worse. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Road Trip That Changed Craft Beer Forever Sep 05, 2023

In 2007, after two decades of professional brewing, Teri Fahrendorf hit the road as an itinerant brewer for an odyssey spanning thousands of miles, dozens of brewery visits and collaborations, and a third of a calendar year. Along the way, she met with other female brewers like her, and they all wanted a way to connect with their colleagues, to find community as women working in a male-dominated industry. Armed with an email list and a pair of cheap pink boots gifted to her before her departure, Teri began laying the groundwork for what would become — you guessed it — the Pink Boots Society, now the beer industry’s leading professional advocacy group for women and nonbinary people. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Budweiser's Infamous Craft-Beer Smear Aug 29, 2023

The dust had hardly settled on Anheuser-Busch InBev’s 2015 acquisition of Elysian Brewing Company when Budweiser’s Super Bowl ad, “Brewed the Hard Way,” poured salt in the wound by punching down at the entire craft brewing industry on the biggest stage imaginable. Today on Taplines, we’re joined by Elysian cofounder Dick Cantwell for a look back at that pivotal moment, when ABI did a little mask-off mudslinging at America’s microbrewers even as it was actively buying into the segment. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Anheuser-Busch's Corona Killer That Wasn't Aug 22, 2023

Corona enjoyed rip-roaring stateside success in the '90s, and the mighty Anheuser-Busch eventually realized it would need an answer. In hopes of blunting the runaway success of the Mexican lager, the King of Beers launched its own beer that came in clear bottles and had a Mexican-sounding name: Tequiza. Rolled out nationally in 1999, Tequiza burned bright for a hot minute before flaming out a few years later. Joining Taplines today is Edmundo Macias, the former brand manager of A-B’s homespun Corona killer that wasn't. He was front and center for Tequiza’s rapid rise and frustrating fall, and on this episode, we talk all about it. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Who Would Actually Acquire Shock Top?! Aug 15, 2023

As you may have heard, one of the world’s biggest cannabis companies, Tilray, just last week acquired a whole bunch of craft breweries and brands from the world’s biggest macrobrewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev. It’s an $85 million dollar deal with bold, potentially bizarre implications for both firms, not to mention the American craft beer industry writ large. Also, it includes Shock Top, which — yes! — still exists. On today's special episode, Dave links up with VinePair managing editor and Cocktail College host Tim McKirdy to talk about this piece of beer industry history in the making. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How New Glarus Got Big by Staying Small Aug 08, 2023

In 2002, Wisconsin’s New Glarus Brewing Company, makers of the beloved Spotted Cow farmhouse ale, announced it’d be pulling out of the Illinois market next door. Six months later, it was gone. The decision shocked and even angered some folks on the wrong side of the Cheddar Curtain, and flew in the face of the contemporary expansionist wisdom of that era in the industry. But brewmaster Daniel Carey simply couldn’t brew enough to keep up with the demand in the state next door, so along with his wife, founder and president Deb, they decided not to. Twenty years later, we spoke to Daniel about how New Glarus grew on its own terms, and became a touchstone for an industry looking for ways to sustainably retrench as growth slows in the process. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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At Dogfish Head, the Imperial IPA Is Born Aug 01, 2023

Imagine a world before IPAs. Can’t do it, can you, Taplines listener? But it’s true: around the turn of this century, the American craft brewing landscape was awash in ambers, brown ales, lagers, and precious few versions of the hop-forward India pale ales that would come to dominate the category a decade later. The ones you could get ahold of in 1999 were mostly well-balanced West Coast-style IPAs. A continuously hopped imperial IPA from an East Coast brewery was quite literally unheard of. Which is where today's guest — Dogfish Head Craft Brewery founder Sam Calagione — and his genre-definining 90 Minute Imperial IPA come in. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Hard Tea First Went Viral Jul 25, 2023

“Tea Partay,” a 2006 spoof-rap spot from Smirnoff to roll out its new hard tea flavored malt beverage, so perfectly met that moment in the American zeitgeist that it went viral before anybody really understood what “going viral” even was. Today on Taplines, Andy Nathan, the founder and CEO of Fortnight Collective, joins us to take us inside the development of the instant-classic ad. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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When the Empire State Bet Big on Craft Brewing Jul 18, 2023

In 2012, New York State had just 95 breweries — dramatically fewer than its fourth-in-the-nation population suggested it should. Five years later, that number had doubled, and the Empire State was well on its way to becoming the craft-beverage hotbed it is today. What happened? Today on Taplines, we've got Chris O'Leary, founder and editor of the venerable Brew York blog and a longtime observer of the state's political brewing landscape, joining for an episode about a certain, since-disgraced governor's successful gambit to boost artisanal booze production with an assist from Albany. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Who Killed Four Loko? Jul 11, 2023

When Four Loko mania reached mainstream fever pitch in 2010, Doctor Joshua Sharfstein was the principal deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. He joins Taplines today to tell a side of the story that got lost in the sauce as the chaotic, cash-rich, caffeinated first act of Four Loko came to a close: how the agency gathered the facts, determined its jurisdiction, and weighed its response to this hugely popular, highly volatile new drink. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Anheuser-Busch's AmeriCan Crisis Jul 04, 2023

Fourth of July is traditionally one of the biggest beer-selling holidays on the calendar, and for the past decade-ish, Anheuser-Busch InBev has capitalized on the holiday by remaking Budweiser with a Stars-and-Stripes label and a jingoistic name. Known colloquially as AmeriCans, these seasonal rebrands present a vision of the United States that simply doesn't exist in reality—a lesson ABI is learning in real time as it tries to assuage transphobes with platitudes three months into the 2023 Bud Light backlash. This Taplines holiday special features your host Dave Infante flying solo and reprising some of his reporting about the AmeriCan, the Bud Light situation, and selling beer in this contemporary political landscape. Happy Fourth of July, and don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Most Important Craft Brewery You've Never Heard Of Jun 27, 2023

There must have been something in the water in Northern California in the late '70s, because the region produced craft brewing legends in scads. Sierra Nevada founder Ken Grossman joins Taplines today to bring us back to that heady milieu and highlight how two of his Golden State contemporaries in particular helped him keep the brewery's now-iconic pale ale flowing in those early years. One was Fritz Maytag, Anchor Brewing's "gentleman brewer." The other was Jack McAuliffe, who founded the New Albion Brewing Company in 1976, only to close up shop half a decade later. How did this tiny, failed brewery change the course of one of the industry's most successful firms? Listen on, listener. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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When Goose Island "Sold Out" Jun 20, 2023

In 2011, Chicago's Goose Island Brewing Co. sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev, kicking off a decade-long acquisition spree by the macro brewer... AND a snarling debate over the ethics of individual firms "selling out" the craft brewing "movement." John Laffler would go on to co-found Off Color Brewing just a couple of years later, but when news of the sale broke, he was heading up Goose Island's vaunted barrel-aging program, and he joins Taplines today to put us in the room for the moment craft beer's corporate cooption hit a whole new gear. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The End of the Light Beer Wars Jun 13, 2023

Don’t call it a comeback, listener, but today Maureen Ogle is making her triumphant Taplines return to take us back to the frontlines of the Light Beer Wars, that ferocious 20th-century struggle for swill-based supremacy between America’s emerging macrobrewers. After talking about how Philip Morris and the Original Lite Beer from Miller hit the brewing industry like a less-filling freight train in the mid-’70s in our first outing, this episode is all about the second half of the conflict, after Schlitz went down swinging, and big bad Anheuser-Busch got involved in earnest. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How America’s First Craft Brewery Was (Re)Born Jun 06, 2023

The year was 1965 when a young Fritz Maytag acquired 51% of a failing San Francisco concern known as "The Steam Beer Brewing Company." The success the industrial scion had transforming what we now know as Anchor Brewing Co. is the stuff of beer industry legend, and many point to it as the moment American craft brewing was born. Joining Taplines to tell us how the "Gentleman Brewer" handled his first few years at the helm of this storied brewery is Dave Burkhart, a three-decade Anchor employee, the author of "The Anchor Brewing Story," and a personal friend of Fritz's to this very day. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Solving the PBR Paradox May 30, 2023

Pabst Blue Ribbon has been sold in these United States since the late 1800s. It's fine, nothing special. But around the turn of the 21st century, something... changed. People started drinking PBR. Like, cool people, and a lot of PBR. What happened next would become the stuff of brewing industry lore, as this middling lager basked in the word-of-mouth indie sleaze cachet that big corporate beer brands would kill for. Joining Taplines today is Steve "Stix" Nilsen. These days, he's the vice president of "cult indoctrination" at Liquid Death, but from 2009 to 2018, he was part of the lifestyle marketing team at Pabst tasked with boosting Blue Ribbon’s bona fides in the scene — like, *every* scene — without going bust. It’s PBR, it’s Stix Nilsen, it’s the Blue Ribbon hipster halo, and it’s right here right now, on VinePair’s Taplines. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Ice Age: Bros, Blogs, and Smirnoff Malt Beverages May 23, 2023

The gag, codified as it was on slapdash websites like Bros Icing Bros, was simple: hide a Smirnoff Ice for your bro to find, and he’d have to get down on one knee and chug it. But even at the time, icing's social and commercial impacts were a bit more complicated, and its legacy is a fascinating example of how the early social internet shaped (and scandalized) the beverage alcohol business. Joining Taplines today to discuss icing’s indelible, low-ABV legacy is Brandon Wenerd, the publisher of BroBible dot com, which covered the viral phenomenon in real-time as the Aughts came to a close. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How Coors Busted Its Union and Boosted Its Boycott May 16, 2023

Conventional business-school wisdom is that most consumer boycotts won't work, because it's almost impossible to put organize a big enough group of customers to make a difference in a big company's bottom line. But starting in 1957 a coalition of labor unionists, Chicano activists, LGBTQ+ advocates, and more began a powerful boycott against Coors Brewing Company over the company's policies and politics that lasted three decades. Here to tell us about a pivotal turning point in what's believed to be the longest boycott in American history is Allyson Brantley, Ph.D., an assistant professor of history at University of La Verne and the author of "Brewing A Boycott." Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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When Anheuser-Busch Went "Craft" May 09, 2023

In the early Aughts, as the craft brewing industry recovered from its slump the prior decade, macrobrewers started to realize that they couldn't just ignore the beardos and their bizarre "microbrews" anymore. But as they say, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. We tapped our pal Anat Baron, the creative force behind the revelatory 2009 documentary "Beer Wars" and the former general manager of Mike's Hard Lemonade, to take us back to the days when Anheuser-Busch tried to clone craft beer with so-called "crafty" knockoffs — and how it used its powerful distribution network to make sure those beers got to supermarket shelves, even though nobody wanted 'em. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Craft Beer's Oval Office Origin Story May 02, 2023

A lot of people know that in 1978, the Carter administration loosened federal laws about homebrewing with a stroke of the executive pen that has been partially credited with launching the craft brewing industry. But far fewer know what that pivotal moment was actually like. So we called someone who did: Charlie Papazian, the iconic founder of both the Brewers Association and the American Homebrewers Association. Listen in as Charlie takes us back to the pre-Carter era of bland adjunct lagers, clandestine garage brews, and the early, barely legal days that would eventually bloom into the American craft brewing industry as we know it. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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The Birth of Line Culture Apr 25, 2023

Throughout the Aughts, craft beer's popularity rose roughly in tandem with social media, and in 2010, the two would collide at Northern California's Russian River Brewing Co. Husband-and-wife team Vince and Natalie Cilurzo opened the taproom one wintry Saturday expecting a low-key day slinging pints and growlers of their triple India pale ale, Pliny the Younger, but what they got instead was one of the first major examples of the craft beer industry's online-ratings hype machine. Joining Taplines is Natalie Cilurzo herself to tell us all about that fateful February when Russian River's fortunes changed for the better—and craft brewing's semi-notorious "line culture" was born. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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How the Light Beer Wars Began Apr 18, 2023

The Original Lite Beer from Miller hit American supermarket shelves in 1975 — and from then on, nothing was the same. To learn how the beer that we'd come to know simply as Miller Lite lit the fuse on the intense, decades-long campaign of corporate competition known to industry insiders simply as "The Light Beer Wars," we're joined by Maureen Ogle, historian, and author of "Ambitious Brew," a vital narrative history of the American beer business. Listen on for a tale of low calories, high stakes, and huge egos — and of course, a reappraisal of the iconic gauntlet August Busch III famously threw down to his Phillip Morris-backed rivals at Miller Brewing Company as they came for the King of Beers in the mid-70s. Don't forget to like, review, and subscribe!

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Introducing Taplines Apr 11, 2023

Introducing Taplines, a brand-spankin’-new podcast about the modern history of American beer, only on the VinePair Podcast Network. Each week, contributing editor and columnist Dave Infante will interview a different guest about a triumph, tribulation, or turning point in the evolution of the United States’ multibillion-dollar beer industry. Think brewing icons, industry insiders, outspoken outsiders... basically anyone and everyone who’s made American beer into the cultural and commercial force it is today. Together, Dave and his guest will hazard some guesses on where it’s all headed tomorrow, too. Tune in Tuesday, April 18th, for the first full episode of Taplines — it's modern American history, one beer at a time!

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