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VinePair @vinepair.com · Sep 3

Czech brewers are making low-alcohol beers that are complex, rich, and fun to drink, offering a blueprint for other brewers to do the same.

How Czech Brewers Make Low-Alcohol Lagers With Big Flavor

Beer fans who make it to Prague before the weather turns will find exactly what they’ve been told to expect: a beautiful Old World city where classic Pilsner-style beers are everywhere, with hundreds ...

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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · Aug 29

VOS Selections, the lead plaintiff on this suit, is a ~4-decade family-owned wine/spirits importer out of NY. As the owner told @vinepair.com after the initial win in the Court of International Trade in late May: "When they asked me to be lead plaintiff, I thought ‘Somebody needs to step up.’"

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Sep 2

Chardonnay remains the most celebrated white variety in the world, but what cult whites do collectors seek out outside of the grape?

The Prized White Wines Collectors Covet Most — That Aren’t Chardonnay

All too often, when the world’s white cult wines are lined up, Burgundy, and its star grape Chardonnay, steal the show. Even beyond the Côte de Beaune — from Sonoma to South Africa to Australia — Char...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Aug 18

From classic Provence expressions to thought-provoking bottles from the Finger Lakes, here are the best rosés under $25.

The 10 Best Rosés Under $25

About two decades ago, rosé took the United States by storm. Spurred on by chic beach goers spending their summers “out east,” the pink wines captured the American imagination and have yet to truly lo...

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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · Aug 15

Bapple's comeback boomed, but ABI has once again stopped shipping the brand—leaving competitors an angle on the national thirst for apple-flavored beers. At @vinepair.com I evaluated the macrobrewer's scarcity strategy in context of another LTO gambit: McDonald's infamously successful hog arbitrage.

Busch Light Apple Is the McRib of Beer

You don’t have to be an expert gambler to understand why it’s verboten to interrupt a craps player’s hot hand at the casino, nor a historian of America’s pastime to grasp why a baseball team won’t say...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Aug 15

Busch Light Apple's return to shelves this year has been nothing short of triumphant, begging the question: Why isn't it around year-round?

Busch Light Apple Is the McRib of Beer

You don’t have to be an expert gambler to understand why it’s verboten to interrupt a craps player’s hot hand at the casino, nor a historian of America’s pastime to grasp why a baseball team won’t say...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Aug 12

Prosecco is famous for its fizz, yet, much to the confusion of everyone, the confounding era of bubble-free Prosecco is here.

Is Still Prosecco a Clever Bid or a Branding Blunder?

There comes a time in the lifespan of wildly successful products when it seems the world is not enough. Think: Crystal Pepsi, Facebook’s pivot to Meta, and non-alcoholic hard seltzer. Prosecco, that c...

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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · Aug 12

And your Hop-ocalypse Now from the latest @vinepair.com Hop Take 🤯: vinepair.com/articles/hop...

🤯 Hop-ocalypse Now
Everything is relative. For example, the data are in on tax paid beer shipments for June 2025, and according to analysis from the Beer Institute, they’re up 0.3 percent year over year. To the untrained ear, a mere 30 basis points may not sound so hot. It isn’t when compared to, say, a decade ago, when the category’s growth was double that figure. But as the trade group’s chief economist Andrew Heritage noted in a statement to Brewbound, the slight increase marks the “strongest growth” on a monthly basis so far this year. And get this: Removals for Q2 “only” declined at about half the rate they did in Q1! Good news is just a matter of perspective, when you think about it.

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Aug 12

The THC drinks category is undeniably exploding, but can the growth predictions actually hold up? If it's going to happen, now is the time.

It’s Now or Never for Cannabis Drinks

Cannabis, marijuana, weed, pot, hemp, the devil’s lettuce — call THC products whatever you like, but they aren’t going away any time soon. And once again, they have the alcohol industry on edge. Since...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Jul 31

With the cocktail renaissance well into its third decade, it's time to step back and consider the greatest bar teams of all time.

The Bar Teams That Defined the Craft Cocktail Revival

When debating the greatest sports teams in history, rabid fans always defend their hometown heroes. They don’t just anoint the Chicago Bulls the greatest basketball team of all time, they exalt the vi...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Jul 30

Currently, three of the top five breweries in the United States aren't breweries at all, they're meaderies.

How Mead, the Drink of the Vikings, Came to Dominate Untappd Rankings

At first glance, Untappd’s list of highest-rated breweries looks kind of weird: Currently, three of the top five producers in the U.S. aren’t breweries at all. Instead, Pips Meadery (#2), Schramm’s Me...

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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · Jul 29

🎧 It's always a treat to join The @vinepair.com Podcast to talk about my recent coverage. In this episode, I recapped the state of play for the hemp-beverage business and my reporting at the Hemp Beverage Alliance's 2025 Hemp Beverage Expo: pod.link/1402310626/e...

(clip via @zgeballe.bsky.social!)

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Susannah SB @whattastesgood.bsky.social · Jul 28

What can today's distillers learn from the last bourbon bust? I try to answer that question, with the help of some folks who actually lived through it (ahem Eddie Russell) in my latest article for @vinepair.com vinepair.com/articles/bou...

What Can Bourbon Distillers Learn From the Last Big Bust?

The bourbon industry is looking at some tough times right now. Sales are down, supply is way up, and distilleries are facing bankruptcy, lawsuits, and even closure. Words like “glut” and “bust,” which...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Jul 29

The first beer can was sold in 1935, and from that point forward breweries and manufacturers have revolutionized its form.

The 10 Most Iconic Beer Cans and Innovations of All Time — and How They Changed Packaging Forever

Please consider the beer can. The aluminum cylinder is one of beer drinking’s greatest inventions, equally a standard accessory at bars, concerts, and backyard BBQs, and a status symbol for drinkers s...

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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · Jul 23

having gotten a sneak preview of @timmckirdy.bsky.social's new mezcal miniseries for @vinepair.com i can't emphasize enough how stoked i am for the show

The VinePair Podcast: The Complex Impact of the Mezcal Boom

Roughly two years ago, VinePair managing editor and “Cocktail College” host Tim McKirdy received an invite from Los Angeles-based restauranteur Ivan Vasquez to travel down to Oaxaca and get a behind-t...

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Brian Alberts @brewedculture.org · Jul 24

Part 2 of Cocktail College's new series on traditional mezcal!

Mezcal's taste as we know today was shaped by prohibitions, corruption, and outside meddling...and all more recently than you think. Listen for yourself.

open.spotify.com/episode/4faV... @vinepair.com @timmckirdy.bsky.social

Digital artwork created for "Mezcal's Untold Past, Soaring Present, and Fragile Future, Part 2," a new mezcal-focused documentary for VinePair's Cocktail College podcast.

It depicts a Mexican man, a farmer and/or mezcalero, walking through a conceptual space showing Oaxacan magueys (the regional term for agave plants), as well as a clay pot used for distilling.

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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · Jul 25

The period from Memorial Day to Labor Day is traditionally the most important season for selling beer. There are all sorts of exceptions to this rule, but as I wrote this week at @vinepair.com, none are big enough to offset what’s shaping up to be another rough summer for the American beer business.

Beer's Biggest Season Is Here. The Sales... Not So Much.

I just flew back from the Hemp Beverage Expo, and boy, are my arms tired! No, but seriously folks, we’ve got a great crowd tonight, which is why it kills me to tell you that the vibes I was getting fr...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Jul 28

The bourbon industry is looking at some tough times right now. How can distillers learn from the sector's last big bust?

What Can Bourbon Distillers Learn From the Last Big Bust?

The bourbon industry is looking at some tough times right now. Sales are down, supply is way up, and distilleries are facing bankruptcy, lawsuits, and even closure. Words like “glut” and “bust,” which...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Jul 24

The Bull City has become the site of a most unusual monthly bar brawl known as Giant Robot Fight Club, the first of which was held in December 2024. vinepair.com/articles/dur...

Inside Durham’s Booziest Bar Fight — Featuring Robots

Durham, North Carolina. Home of Duke University and its vaunted Blue Devils basketball team. An anchor of the so-called Research Triangle, with some of the nation’s top medical centers, numerous high ...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Jul 23

The Four Horsemen made its debut on Grand Street in 2015. A decade later, the Brooklyn wine bar is still an influential presence.

The Four Horsemen Turns 10: How the Brooklyn Bar Changed the Natural Wine Scene Forever

A decade ago, Williamsburg was in an in-between era — on the verge of reaching peak Smorgasburg but not yet succumbing to the modern conveniences of Whole Foods. The area definitely wasn’t as replete ...

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Brian Alberts @brewedculture.org · Jul 17

Mezcal's grown exponentially in the last 15 years, thanks in part to cocktails.

For @vinepair.com's Cocktail College podcast, @timmckirdy.bsky.social looks at mezcal's most traditional producers and the culture they work to maintain in the face of breakaway capitalism.

Ep 1 dropped today 🔗 👇

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Digital artwork created for "Mezcal's Untold Past, Soaring Present, and Fragile Future, Part 1," a new mezcal-focused documentary for VinePair's Cocktail College podcast.

It depicts a Mexican man, a farmer and/or mezcalero, walking through a conceptual space showing Oaxacan mountains, agave plant leaves, animated hands holding copitas and an eye nested in agave leaves. The man is also holding a large mallet reminiscent of a mazo (a tool used for manually crushing agave for mezcal production).

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Jason Tremblay @jasontremblay.bsky.social · Jul 18

Thinking about this article today. The excellent people at Bar Volo in Toronto have lost access to their Meta accounts. We don’t own our online lives, and we really should be thinking about this more. @vinepair.com

Social Media Sucks. What if Craft Breweries Left It Behind?

Everybody knows that Instagram is crucial to a craft brewery’s success. But what this column presupposes is… maybe it isn’t. Hold that thought. My first job out of college was at a publication called ...

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Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · Jul 21

And your 🤯 Hop-ocalypse Now 🤯 from the latest
@vinepair.com Hop Take: vinepair.com/articles/hop...

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Evan Rail @evanrail.bsky.social · Jul 22

At the moment, Garage Beer is the biggest success story in U.S. craft beer (B.A. definition). Beyond celebrity ownership, there’s a lot going on. And guess who's making it under contract.

H/T to @kimberlyaclements.bsky.social & others, for @vinepair.com.

vinepair.com/articles/kel...

How the Kelce Brothers’ Garage Beer Became a Craft Beer Success Story

From struggling taprooms to slumping big-brand lagers, there aren’t a lot of success stories in the beer business of late. Overall production and imports fell 1 percent last year, while craft sales dr...

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VinePair @vinepair.com · Jul 22

Garage Beer’s path to success offers insight into how small brands can make things work today and hints at where the industry might be going.

How the Kelce Brothers’ Garage Beer Became a Craft Beer Success Story

From struggling taprooms to slumping big-brand lagers, there aren’t a lot of success stories in the beer business of late. Overall production and imports fell 1 percent last year, while craft sales dr...

vinepair.com

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