Dave Infante, Beer Journalist

Welcome back to The DC Beer Show! This episode brings some extra sparkle as our hosts sit down with special guest Dave Infante, the freshly crowned 2025 North American Guild of Beer Writers best business writing category winner.

Our hosts ditch their usual "What's in your glass?" opener in favor of a midday roundup of recent brews, like Dave Infante's nonalcoholic Hoplark hop water (scored from a rare local drop), and Brandy Holder's cute little Sierra Nevada craft lager—plus plenty of shoutouts to delicious pale ales and lagers from spots like Right Proper, Eebee's, and Lost Generation, setting the stage for their much-anticipated beer share at Denizens.

But the true heart of the episode is a deep dive into beer journalism, cultural critique, and some righteous ranting about The New York Times' recent craft beer op-ed. Dave Infante deconstructs the misunderstood perceptions that plague craft beer coverage, especially the tired narrative that wacky labels and IPA dominance are "killing" the scene. Instead, he brings the receipts: IPAs remain 50% of the market, breweries are constantly reinventing lagers, and American beer is arguably better than ever. The conversation is equal parts spicy and insightful, with hosts and guest alike poking fun at bygone trends (remember palate-wrecking IPAs?) and celebrating the wild diversity pouring from local taps these days.

There's a strong sense of camaraderie throughout, as the group chats about women-owned breweries like Denizens and Right Proper, upcoming events for beer lovers (including the Women’s Brew Culture Club), and the joys of unstructured beer shares where community and conversation rule.

As the episode wraps, Dave Infante shares where to keep up with his writing on Fingers and VinePair—and both DC Beer and Dave encourage you to support good beer, honest journalism, and local community wherever you find it.

Grab a cold one, celebrate the golden age of American beer, and join us for another rollicking session of The DC Beer Show—where facts, flavors, and fun go hand-in-hand!

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Creators and Guests

Host

Brandy Holder

This southern girl got a late start in the beer world, but with such a bold and intoxicating personality behind the name, booze was destined to be a part of her endeavors.

Host

Jacob Berg

Jake’s beer education began when his dad brought home a 6-pack of Brooklyn Lager in the mid-90s. It was love at first sip.

Host

Mike Stein

Michael Stein is President of Lost Lagers, Washington, DC’s premier beverage research firm. His historic beers have been served at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the Polish Ambassador’s residence.

Producer

Richard Fawal

President of DC Beer Media LLC and Publisher of DCBeer.com and The DC Beer Show

What is The DC Beer Show?

The official podcast of DCBeer.com! Everything you need to know about the people, places, and brews that make the DMV America’s best beer scene, including the best local places for eats, brews, trivia, live music, and more! Learn about the latest trends in craft beer – from the beers, to the breweries, to the business – from the editors of DC Beer.

Michael Stein [00:00:06]:
Greetings, everyone, and welcome to the DC Beer Show. We're switching things up today, and I'm introing us as if I was our editor, Jake. But I'm not Jake. I'm Mike. The reason I'm introing us here today is because we have a very special guest. He is the first place holder of the North American Guild of Beer Writers 2025 best business writing category winner. Quote, is Tilray Brands craft beer bet real smart or real dumb in VinePair. As I am the 2024 best business writing category winner, I figured it would be best to welcome him to the show. His name should probably be Dave as he puts the capital j in journalism. It's Dave Infante. Oh, no. My

Dave Infante [00:00:51]:
thank you. Thanks for the kind intro. It's good to be here, man.

Michael Stein [00:00:56]:
For those wondering who Dave is, he's a two times James Beard award winning journalist who covers the food and drink industries. He publishes Fingers, an independent newsletter about drinking in America. He also works as a contributing editor and columnist at VinePair where he publishes the weekly beer industry column, HopTake. Dave, welcome to the show.

Dave Infante [00:01:17]:
Thanks so much, man. It's it's great to be here. I'm glad to join.

Michael Stein [00:01:21]:
Well, thanks for joining us, Dave. We typically start off every pod with what are we drinking. But because we're recording earlier than we usually do, I'll ask what did you recently drink that you can't wait to try again?

Dave Infante [00:01:35]:
Yeah. So I am currently drinking a Hoplark, hop water, nonalcoholic. As you know, we're recording this during the middle of the day, which I like a lot. I buy whenever I get, I'm able to get my hands on it here in Virginia. They have pretty limited distribution here, but it does show up from time to time. They have some sort of business partnership with Brooklyn Brewery that they inked, I think, early last year, that I had hoped would increase the frequency and availability of of Hoplark, but it's been still pretty spotty. But I pounced on a couple 12 packs that showed up at my, my local market recently. And then what I what I was really pleasantly surprised about, this is we're recording this right after Halloween weekend, and I drank a bunch of Dogfish Head's pumpkin ale, which has been around for, you know, a long time. And I this is the first year I'd come back to it in years, and the beer really holds up, man. I was really pleasantly surprised at how, how pumpkiny it was, not overbearing. It's also not, like, it's not imperial, so, like, the ABV is, like, still somewhat manageable. You know? I feel like a lot of pumpkin ales have really started chasing towards the upper rungs of the ABV ladder, and I'm 37, man. I can't, you know, can't be can't be dabbling at, like, eight, nine, 10% ABV for very long anymore.

Michael Stein [00:03:09]:
Yeah. Of course not. Well, let's kick it off. Brandy, what are you drinking, or what have you recently had that you can't wait to try again?

Brandy Holder [00:03:18]:
How long is this episode? No. I just tried to take another sip of my coffee that I reheated from this morning, and it was too cold and may I made a disgusting face. But I'm actually gonna crack open because I don't have to be back at work until another hour or so. I'm gonna crack over open a gift from, Scoops, mister Jake Berg. It is a Sierra Nevada pre em premium Hills craft lager. It's only 4.7, and it's so cute. It's in a 8.4 little, ounce can, so we're gonna crack that open. Recently, obviously, I was at Eby's and had a light and dark, which was Shillings Alexander and Sojourn's Midnight side by side, which was lovely. And, just I'm looking forward to Lost Generation's anniversary coming up, the third anniversary coming up actually on Saturday. So I will be there, of course, wouldn't be anywhere else. And, I was just at, Wright Proper in Brooklyn and had this delicious, just low ABV pale ale, and, it was called Scotty Doesn't Know, which is it's a great story behind it. If you guys know the brewer Scott over at Right Proper, which he actually might not because he doesn't really talk to anybody, which is the whole story. Anyway, that is incredible. And if you're interested in that beer, go check it out. It's draft only. And, if you wanna know all about it, I did a recent shift beers with b episode with Chris Broom. So go check that out. Other than that, I'm very much looking forward to our beer share on this Sunday at, at Denizen's. Sorry. My brain I needed more coffee, obviously, at Denizen's. And, and then, obviously, the women's brew culture club event will be at Wright Proper in Shaw this time, and it's just gonna be chill. We're not doing, like, a structure thing. It's just gonna be just kind of regroup and come together and, you know, be friendly and try to forget our worries of the world right now. Mister mister Berg Scoops, thanks for the Sierra Nevada. Would you what do you what are you drinking slash what are you going to drink? I know you're furloughed, so you can drink whatever you want. Yeah.

Dave Infante [00:05:37]:
I can

Jacob Berg [00:05:37]:
drink whatever I want whenever I want, which is why the first time I had, Scotty doesn't know, it was like a Tuesday at 10AM as I walk the dogs into the brewery. They have a coffee set up, but I went right past the coffee having already had that and went was like, hey. Like, let me get eight eight ounces of that, and then I'll keep walking the dogs. I'm gonna try to bring a growler of that over to Denizens on Sunday, everybody.

Brandy Holder [00:06:04]:
It's really good.

Jacob Berg [00:06:05]:
RSVP. It's pretty, pretty good. We like Scotty. He's a he's a big grumpy. He only talks to me about Southern Maryland traffic, and that's about it. I'm gonna go in the other direction from light and dark, like, two very intentionally crafty craft beers at Eevee's dispensed out of Czech style Lucre Pours. Yeah. And I'm gonna go with Randy Mills, burnishes head brewer and owner brewed an exclusive light lager, that in Emily's words is both fancy and shitty. It's an American adjunct light lager. It's 4.6%. It's called immaculate whip making fun of Emily's, like, disgusting, like, late nineteen eighties Toyota Corolla or something. It's on the can. You can only get it at Eby's. Somehow, they managed to add, though it's in a can, like, that weird natty bow, like, skunk light struckness to the beer. And so, like, you get this cool taste of, like, oh, that's lovely corn in a beer, but wait. Also, like, they fucked it up, and it's like, no. They actually did that on purpose. And so, to me, it is delightful. They intentionally went out and made a bad beer, for Eby's Corner Bar, except that it's not a bad beer. It tastes like exactly what it's supposed to taste like. And you may as well buy that and give Randy and Bernice your money as opposed to wherever they make National Bohemian now somewhere in, like, North Carolina or, like, heck, Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Who knows?

Michael Stein [00:07:41]:
That's true, Jake. It's no longer brewed in Charm City in in in, in Baltimore, but, I should say I should echo your sentiments, Brandy. We're very excited for Denizens, sort of well known as, the first, lesbian owned brewery in Maryland. And then at Wright Proper Shaw, that is a woman owned brewery. Our own Leah Cheston, owns Wright Proper Shaw. So we got some it's it's like, it's like an early March with all these, women focused events and and women owned breweries. We love it. We love to see it. Moving right along, Dave, I have to tell you I love reading your hop take columns. I always learn something after I read them. And so we here at DC Beer, we're big on helping deliver value to our listeners. You know, we like to make them feel posh and very welcomed, even though we're doing good looking. That's right. We're doing it on a shoestring budget, but, man, do we feel fancy, when we get together at places like Denizens for our DC beer shares. But we wanted to ask you about a piece you wrote a couple weeks ago titled, maybe people who want to save beer should learn something about it first. Tell us about this piece, why you wrote it, and what you hope to get across in it.

Dave Infante [00:09:00]:
Yeah. So about, what, three weeks ago, the New York Times, little paper you guys might have heard of, up in Manhattan, they published a a editorial or, excuse me, an op ed by a contributor, named Mark Robichaux, I think is how you'd say is Robichaux, is how you'd say his last name. That was initially titled, how to save beer. And they did the thing that the New York Times and other publications do, not infrequently. Now that, you know, the most important sort of place to read coverage is online, is on the print paper. They'll finagle with the, the headline over the course of the first twenty four or forty eight hours to optimize it for more traffic. So they they wound up switching up the headline, to, something that was, like, a little bit, I think, more revealing of the the thrust of the article, or the thrust of the editorial. That was wacky names and silly labels are killing craft beer. But either way, the this piece under one of those titles ran in the most valuable, editorial real estate in the Western world, the English speaking world. Right? I mean, there's many valid critiques to levy at the New York Times opinion section and the paper writ large, but the fact remains that it is enormously influential, with the type of people who may drink craft beer, who may be interested in, in this product or maybe already are interested in this product. So with that comes, to my mind, degree of journal high journalistic responsibility. Right? Like, you've got this opportunity to speak to a ton of people. You got this platform. You you can have opinions, and that's exactly what the opinion section is designed for, but, like, you'd like them to be informed by basic reality and empirical fact. Right? And I read this op ed by Mark Robitra in the New York Times with, like, mounting dread as, like, every more or less every graph, it just got sort of, like, worse worse and worse with just these hoary, well trod stereotypes about the craft brewing industry that were just either outdated or made in bad faith or just sort of flatly false. And it, you know, it vexes, I suppose. I know it rankled a lot of people in the brewing industry. I I think I saw or I know I saw the Brewers Association's chief economist, Matt Gissiak, wrote kind of a, polite but peaked, blog post of his own on the Brewers Association site sort of probing some of these fallacies that Robichaux put forth in the New York Times. I chose to file a column at VinePair about Robichaux's piece, which I rarely do. Like, I you know, weekly column is pretty difficult, just as a, like, a pace at which to write. And, normally, like, I don't I wouldn't do media criticism there because it's like there's more important shit going on than, like, what, you know, like, the blog post that everyone's angry about that week. But, like, this was more than a blog post. Right? I mean, it's the New York Times. It's a huge platform. It's a craft brewing industry that has certainly seen better days and, like, is not necessarily exempt from criticism. That's not the case I'm trying to make, but deserves to be criticized on merit and in good faith on that platform. And I think really missed the mark there. And whoever was fucking editing the New York Times opinion section, Kathleen Kingsbury, I think, is the is the the editor in charge over there, but I'm sure it was, you know, one of her, line editors or whatever who handled this piece, was just asleep at the wheel. Either didn't know anything about the burn the brewing industry or didn't care, but it just showed a real lack of real lack of care. And that shit pisses me off, man. Like, it's we're all hacking our way through a living here, and I don't necessarily want the New York Times to run my op eds. If they're interested, they can find me, and we can talk about it. But, like, it's more like, look, man. If you if you have that opportunity, like, you also have a responsibility, and I think that piece just totally missed the mark. So that's why that's why I decided to file that column at, at VinePair is it this shit deserves to be, like, fisked on its own terms. Like, Robitrust staked out an argument. It sucked, and I wanted to lay out why it sucked.

Michael Stein [00:14:14]:
Yeah. I think the one of the biggest points you made in the in the, article in the in your column was kind of about how, you know, if if he felt like I would like less IPA, that's a valid Oh, dude. Argument. Right? Who who wouldn't like less IPA? But the reality, it's it's almost a lie of omission, is it's 50% of the market. So if you're saying that, you know, wacky names and silly labels are killing craft beer, but you're gonna rip out one out of every two beers sold you know, in our case in DC, we have a dozen local breweries. They're all they're all distro in DC. Some get as far down to Richmond or South Carolina North Carolina. Some go north up to 95 Corridor. But, you know, it's it's almost a lie of a mission to say about 50% of craft beer sales is IPA. Right? So so I don't know. I I thought your piece was really good because, you know, you brought facts to the table. Right? And and and it's a column. It's not the opinion page of the New York Times. But I love that you're like, I've been getting spam blasted by by Ankh and grandma with this New York sending me links, which, guilty, I send you links all the time, Dave. But if you get a text from them, reply back with this text and have them read. So I'll have to, I will share. I've disseminated and distributed your vine payer column, to as many folks as possible. Please.

Dave Infante [00:15:47]:
Yeah. It's like

Jacob Berg [00:15:49]:
It's a bewildering rate. Like, it's an array of riches out here in craft beer world. Like, we just last week had a DCX brewery now taproom commission another brewery contract brew to make their Irish style red ale.

Dave Infante [00:16:05]:
Wow. That's dumb.

Jacob Berg [00:16:07]:
Yeah. Right? Why? Because people in the taproom asked for that. Yeah. Like, there's already five IPAs on there. Great. Again, IPA is what sells, but, you know, breweries are very, very good at meeting the market and giving people something else. Even like Yeah. The other half right now, like, they've got snaps, like American style Pilsner, like and they'll give it to you on, like, a side pole, like, you know, like, you could you could you could do a of it right now, like, if you wanted to, and you could because it's 01:20PM on a Monday, and they're open.

Michael Stein [00:16:43]:
Yeah. And and just for some anecdote, I was gonna say Jake and I were were out around town last week. We went to Solace Solace Outpost in Falls Church. They had a dozen beers on draft. Six were IPA. The other six, like, two were lagers, a Czech dark lager, Mexican style lager. They had a English pub ale. They had, the brown ale, like, wonderful things. So half of the beer was IPA, half was not. And that to me is a really accurate 50% of that market that you were bringing. Right? We were at the taproom, a a dozen beers on draft, half were IPA, half were, you know, drink the world. Right? Like yeah.

Dave Infante [00:17:19]:
Yeah. I think so one of the central claims here of this this column, which I think was probably the one that pissed the most people off, certainly was the one that, like, when I hit that in Robitra's op ed, I was like, oh, this guy's not this is an unserious column. Right? Was the quote was I'm looking at it right now. Quote, for starters, it he means the craft brewing industry, must abandon the IPA arms race. Craft beer's obsession with hops has gone too far as what started as a rebellion against bland lagers has spiraled into a bitter boozy blur, close quote. So there's a few things going on there that anyone who's listening to this podcast can probably just intuitively suss out as as wrong and outdated. The first is, as you say, like, the idea of a craft brewing industry abandoning its most profitable and most, widely in demand segment is just bad business advice on face. Right? Like, you can't, like, say goodbye to 50% of your revenue and then, like, figure it out from there. It's just not that is not a a a credible contention. Right? It could be a critique about, like, I don't like these. Right? And I think I made this point in the piece. Like, people love fucking complaining about IPAs. Like, I do it all the time, but, like, I don't waste my fucking reader's time doing it. Like, that okay, man. Like, it's such a joke in the craft brewing industry that, like, everyone every year is like, this is the year of craft lager. I can feel it, man. You know? It's like everyone's like, it's coming around. Like, IPAs are almost over. It's like, it's not over. Right? And you talk you hear from brewers all the time, or I hear it from brewers from reporting. Like, a lot of them have very conflicted feelings about pursuing a business that's so heavy on IPAs. A lot of brewers would really like to not make another IPA. Like, they don't necessarily enjoy it either. It's not technically challenging in the way that they maybe aspire to brew. It's not, you know, nuanced and exciting to them because they've already done it a bunch. So, like, there's actually an interesting set of circumstances, you know, beyond just the scan data or beyond just whatever the BA puts out about, you know, the segment proportionality that shows IPAs are important from a business standpoint. There's actually a pretty interesting complex story about, like, brewers being almost beholden to IPAs even though they don't necessarily want to continue to put them out into the market anymore. I mean, the the industry has seen better days, and they have to go with what works and be more judicious about, pushing styles that they're personally excited about or maybe more technically exciting or maybe really do have the depth to, you know, sort of bring their core customer to the next level because it's tank space, it's distributor share of mind, it's, you know, like, the taps in the taproom that they know are gonna, you know, the IPA kegs are gonna turn at a certain rate, and the other stuff is gonna sit at a, you know, for much longer. Like, these are real considerations that craft brewers are taking into account every day, and, like, they so that that, you know, argument on face, I think, was just, like, really, you know, stupid. It it just, like, was not this is not the work of someone who's engaged with, like, the manifest problems of the industry. But then, also, dude, the fucking IPA, arms race, like, that trope, I think, set off a lot of alarm bells for people reading this comp because, like, that shit I don't know. When would I put I was talking to Chris O'Leary who does Brew York. I was texting with him about this op ed after it came out. I was like, when is the last time that, like, that felt, like, real and relevant to you? And he and I put it at, like, twenty fifteen or so. We're like because that was a thing. Like, right? Like, the idea of, like, more and more IBUs. Let's just pack these things full of hops. Like, gonna rip the enamel off your teeth. Like, that was certainly a thing. But I to my mind, that is at least a decade old at this point.

Michael Stein [00:21:27]:
Yeah. The goalposts have moved. IPA is no longer bitter. IPA is now aromatic, fruity

Dave Infante [00:21:33]:
Right.

Michael Stein [00:21:34]:
Juicy. I mean, you know, your your friend Kate Bernad had this great piece in in, The Post two years ago about how every IPA is now juicy or everybody wants to be Right. Right? So the goalpost to move, and I would say it was 2015 when we last were like, man, beer is so bitter. It's hard not to find a bitter beer. And now because Brandy and Jake and I love bitter beer, we are often searching for it. And, you know, like, Brandy goes to West Coast ID.

Dave Infante [00:22:00]:
Like a treat. Yeah. Yeah. No. Totally.

Michael Stein [00:22:02]:
And when she finds a good one, she texts me, like yeah. Yeah.

Dave Infante [00:22:05]:
I feel like that Brandy and I

Brandy Holder [00:22:07]:
yep. Brandy. My first love.

Dave Infante [00:22:09]:
Yeah. We

Jacob Berg [00:22:10]:
it's Brandy's first love. We were just at a bar on Saturday. And, of course, like, what do you do? Like, you go and you get the West Coast IPA. And, like, I took a sip of it, and I was like, man, remember Green Flash, like, palate wrecker and everything was Green

Dave Infante [00:22:22]:
Flash is exactly what I'm thinking. Yes.

Jacob Berg [00:22:24]:
Like, a 100 IBUs, paint peel, like, huge alpha acids. And this is a very pleasant beer, but it's, like, it's, like, it's got, like, strata in it. It's so aromatic as opposed to bitter. Maybe this beer is, like, forty forty five IBU. And it's like, what is what is the complaint about that? And then also bringing up dogfish head a hundred twenty minutes, which I can occasionally buy by the case in Costco in DC if I was a sick sick person who wanted, you know, to stockpile this, like, quadruple is it a barley wine? Is it, like, something else? Who, like, who knows?

Dave Infante [00:23:02]:
Yeah. It just They're

Jacob Berg [00:23:03]:
very strange dated arguments. You know?

Brandy Holder [00:23:06]:
Yeah. And the thing that I Sorry again. Sorry. The the the thing that I'm kind of glad has fallen, off mostly is I I and this this was local, Dave, but when three stars and it was a whole theme. Everyone was doing it, but three stars was doing every single beer that they came out was double dry hopped with lupulin on it. Like, it was it that's all that you could find, and it was all 10% or 9% at the at the lowest. And what even though IPAs are almost all hazy seemingly now, what what's enjoyable is that at least the lower ABBs and traditional more traditional styles are coming, but you see them more and more and more. So I'm here for this. It's like fashion. Everything goes in a circle. So, you know, we'll we'll we'll have little, segments of of trends that are going to be annoying probably, and, and some might last too long.

Dave Infante [00:24:09]:
Yeah. No. I think that's right. And, like, again, like, this is not me, Dave and Fante arguing that IPAs are great, and I only wanna drink them. I mean, personally, I don't actually gravitate towards the style and never really have. But, you know, this guy said Roberto said, here's another quote from a quote. I love a good IPA, but bring back the Pilsner, the Amber, the pale ale, or reinvent the lager as many have, close quote. And it's like, oh, reinvent the lager, man? Well, fuck. Why didn't anyone think of that? I'm glad you put this in the New York Times. Otherwise, 9,000 brewers across the country never would have stumbled onto that fucking invention on their own. Like, come on. It it's just like, I think, you know, I use the word unserious here. It's like, first of all, the idea of reinventing the lager, quote, unquote, is like no fucking throwaway, like, you know, we'll do it in an afternoon type task. Like, you're talking about a style that's that's maybe the most well known style of beer in human history, certainly one of. And you've got kind of a millennia, of, you know, sort of cultural imprinting around the standard lager that you would be working against. And second of all, a lot of brewers are doing that, are working on it. Right? Like, they are putting out versions of their their own version of a lager, and some of them are having real success with it. And so this was another critique, a half bait, you know, sort of criticism or smear that he put forth, that, actually, if you look a little closer at it, there's a much more interesting story there about brewers that are standing up sub brands that are oriented explicitly around, like a lager value proposition or flavor proposition, or they're, they're going all in on just that type of beer, that, you know, with a with a lager only brewery. Like, there are versions of what he's arguing for. He just didn't care to didn't put in any effort to actually go out and find them. And I think, again, like, it's fun to doke dunk on this particular schmo. Like, I think he did a bad job, and he shouldn't be ashamed of himself on this op ed. But the more important thing that I wanted to draw out in the column, in my column, was that, like, there are and this is what we've been getting at a little bit here. It's like there are kernels of truth here, and I do think that the craft brewing industry deserves criticism. And I do think that it can be productive to have conversations both with brewers and with consumers about, like, what is working, what isn't working, you know, like, where should the industry lean in and where should it maybe pull back. But those conversations have to be informed by, like, as I was saying, like, some basic fucking, like, sales data is one, you know, way that you could ground this in reality. Another and this is a fucking journalist complaint, so, like, forgive the audience. This is too inside baseball here. But, like, I wrote one story for the New York Times once, like, back in, like, like, 2018, 2019. And, like, it was for the news section, but still, like, you know, writing for the New York Times. Do you know how fucking quickly anyone will respond to your emails if you put in the subject line, like, hey. I'd like to interview you for the New York Times? That shit is, like, faster than Superman going backwards around the world and reversing time. Like, they're back in your inbox with the quickness. And I say that to say this, like, this dude could have fucking picked up the phone and called anyone who would have told him some interesting things that would have at least added some dimension to the piece. So that's where I got kinda red asked about this. Like, as a journalist, it's like, dude, like, it is such a pain in the ass to line up interviews. That's just part of the job. You guys know it. Like, you know, like, people are busy, and, getting coverage is important to them, but maybe not as important as keeping the lights on or where they've got a an event coming up that they're all hands on deck for blah blah blah. Like, that's just the game. Whatever. They will move heaven and fucking earth to talk to New York Times, and it just really it it it chaps my ass that, like, he couldn't be bothered to use that massive advantage to bring something of interest to this column other than the same, like, warmed over Facebook grievances that we've all been fucking plowing through for the last, you know, ten years. You know?

Michael Stein [00:28:43]:
Yeah. I I think, Dave, one piece I wanna come back to, which is Sorry. I was just shouting for a while. It's all good. It's all good. Which which is this, reinventing the lager is happening right now. So Jake and I were at Solace. They had a wonderful check dark lager. I was at Jailbreak, which is in, Columbia, Maryland. So I was, you know, South Of DC and North Of DC, and they also had an incredible check dark lager. Reinventing right now, I would submit the new stock you know, new, is West Coast pills or, you know, there's a there's a trend right now. We're seeing West Coast pills. And a lot of people are using hops grown in New Zealand, and they have this existential dread. Do I call it a New Zealand Pilsner? It's more bitter than New Zealand Pilsner. Maybe I should call it a West Coast Pilsner. So it's literally happening. And I would posit that out of 10,000 breweries he coulda reached out to, he coulda just walked down the street or walked, you know, or driven a a few miles from home, presumably, and gone to a brewery where people were trying new things.

Jacob Berg [00:29:45]:
Well, so it like, it's a double grievance. Right? Reinvent the lager. Pause. No. Wait. Not like that. Now it's hoppy. And it's like, well, like, you know, like, what what exactly were people looking for? Like, everyone and their mother in DC is installing, like, Czech style faucets. There's a Bree on H Street right now that has a Grazitzky and a Grazette on. Like

Brandy Holder [00:30:12]:
So good.

Jacob Berg [00:30:13]:
We live in, like, wild times. My local has 25 taps and did not kick a keg of IPA in their first week of operation. They kicked, like, They kicked the keg of shipyard pumpkin. Like

Dave Infante [00:30:30]:
Wow. We were shot.

Jacob Berg [00:30:32]:
The gold we live in the golden age of beer, and yet, and yet, you know, here here we are with this article and this pseudo argument, which I agree is very unserious.

Dave Infante [00:30:44]:
Yeah. And, like, to your point, I think and this is something that I've talked about before, with our colleagues in beer media. But, like, there really is better beer now than there ever has been in American history. Right? That's, I think, demonstrably true by basically any metric. And so I think, again, not that I'm his fucking assignment editor, but, like, if Robichaud wanted to put forth an actually interesting argument, there's a real tension between the fact that our beer in this country is better than it ever has been before. There's more variety. Peep more brewers are executing at the top level on more styles than ever before. And yet interest in beer has stagnated in a way that we haven't seen within our lifetimes. That's trying to, like, mine a column out of the fundamental contradiction between those two realities is pretty fertile ground. And, again, just no effort being made there. And the point I wanna make about, like, you know, the media aspect of this that I think is important is the New York Times is gonna publish whatever it's gonna publish. I don't understand its opinion page mandate. I don't agree with most of it. This stuff seems lower stakes. Right? Like, it's it's ultimately, like, we're talking about it on a a beer podcast, and I wrote about it in a beer column. Like, it seems like it's not that big of a deal for them to throw, like, a kind of a stinker out about the craft beer industry. Right? It's like, oh, it got all of the this one niche riled up, but, like, ultimately, what's the what's the big deal? There's no, you know, sort of broader implications. I don't actually think that's true, though. And I say that because the last time or at least most recently, one of the last times the opinion section published a piece about beer prior to this one, they published a a op ed from this guy named Anson Freerks. Freerks? Anson something, who was a former executive of Anheuser Busch InBev. He ran, like, the wholly owned distributor division or whatever. And he's one of these, like, fucking, anti woke, like, investment finance guys. You know? Like, ESG is killing investments, and wokeness is bad for the economy and whatever. You guys can kind of you know you know the type.

Michael Stein [00:33:25]:
We're familiar.

Dave Infante [00:33:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, we've all become very familiar with this type of person. But, anyway, he he he had a piece, and I wrote about this at Fingers at the time back in, like, February 2025, January 2025 ish, top of this year, about how the Bud Light fiasco in 2023 proved that, like, wokeness had, like, taken over in Hauser Busch and was, like, destroying, like, great American companies from within. Right? And so you've heard versions of this argument before. I mean, it's basically like Marco Rubio's entire fucking shtick until he, you know, became secretary of state. Woke capital. Right? Like, this was the the the premise here. And it's easily disprovable, but the New York Times put forth this argument uncritically allows this guy, Anson Fruchs, to advance an implicitly transphobic argument. Right? Like, this idea that, like, Dylan Mulvaney, the trans influencer, who is, the the person that set off the, the right wing temper tantrum that spawned the Bud Light fiasco in 2023, is basically just, like, acceptable collateral damage. And Anheuser Busch had, like, by engaging with her in some way, and they've never been clear exactly about what the relationship was between the company and and Dylan Mulvaney, had, like, strayed too far from its mission of selling beer. Right? And so this is this is a version of this, like, small c conservative argument that, you know, you should only do what's good for business, and companies should only ever, you know, think in terms of, dollars and cents and should never take cultural positions. Right? First of all, we can debate that on morals. Right? And that's a separate issue, unfortunately, as this always has to be siloed off. Right? But just in terms of basic economic sense, I don't think that that's demonstrably true. It's certainly not demonstrably true in Bud Light's case. I mean, if you look at the specifics of the Bud Light Fiasco, as I know you guys have, we lived through this. It's not that ancient history. It was just a couple years ago. Anheuser Busch made that, like, crisis into a full blown catastrophe by, like, drastically mismanaging its response over the course of months. Right? So this was not the this idea of, like, wokeness destroyed this company. I would say that this was ineptitude at the highest levels of its executive core, that, that, you know, caused it to stumble in the way that it has and cost it all of the money that it did. And that's the same opinion page that published this fucking op ed by Robicha, like, nine months later. Like, the judgment like, there's continuity between the judgment that puts both of those pieces in the pages of the New York Times opinion section. And I think interrogating that judgment or lack thereof is important because as much as I love you guys and the DC beer know, podcast and as much as I love writing for Vinepear, like, the reality is we don't have the reach of the New York Times opinion section. And, like, for every fucking one of these podcasts, as you were saying, Mike, like, people are passing around that link to his article this is the gospel truth. I read it in the New York Times. And that's bad on, you know, like, for truth and whatever. It's also bad for 9,500 craft brewers that are, you know, hanging in and fighting hard to stay alive in a tough business. Like, I am not here to cape for the craft brewing industry, and I know you guys aren't either, but, like, it's gotta be a fair fight, man, or something approaching it, and that was just a fucking sucker punch.

Michael Stein [00:37:05]:
Well, on that note, I wanna make sure we support an honest fair fight. So check out Dave at VinePair. You can also check his work with Fingers Out. Fingers dot email will get you there. In addition, check us out on Patreon, patreon.com/dcbeer. We will be at Denizens on the ninth. That one's free and on the house, but we like to have special shares for our members only. Dave and Fante, what a privilege it's been to talk to you. Thank you so much. Where can listeners find you in addition to Fingers?

Dave Infante [00:37:43]:
Oh, yeah. Well, thanks, first of all, for you guys for having me, and thanks for listening to me rant. I I I do appreciate it, and I love what you guys are doing here. In terms of, yeah, where to find me like you said, fingers.email is my newsletter. I publish weekly at hop take, which is on vinepier.com. But then in addition to that, as, as Jake was noting before we started rolling here, I'm I'm very online. I'm too online. It's, and I spend a lot of that time online on Blue Sky, which, is, you know, sort of one of the sort of, error parents to Twitter after, you know, I must took it over. Blue Sky is great. It works exactly like Twitter. I like it a lot. You can find me there at dinfonte.com. So that's, just my you know, d I n f o n t a y dot com is my handle. But, yeah, you find me on there. You can DM me there. You can email me. And, and, yeah, no. I I really appreciate you guys you guys having me on.

Jacob Berg [00:38:38]:
Awesome. Thank you. And you could find us on blue sky as well at dcbu.com. I know it. Dave, thank you so much. For everyone supporting furloughed, government workers, unpaid contractors out there in the DC beer land with, beer and sandwiches, thank you very much. We're now into month two. Hopefully, we get through this. Alright. We're at DCB, everybody. Be well.

Brandy Holder [00:39:03]:
Bye, guys.