Taplines
VinePair
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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Top 10 Taplines Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Taplines episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Taplines for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Taplines episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
03/12/24 • 49 min
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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02/27/24 • 50 min
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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02/13/24 • 50 min
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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11/21/23 • 61 min
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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10/10/23 • 36 min
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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08/22/23 • 45 min
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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08/15/23 • 67 min
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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05/16/23 • 66 min
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"
Taplines
05/09/23 • 52 min
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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06/06/23 • 67 min
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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FAQ
How many episodes does Taplines have?
Taplines currently has 58 episodes available.
What topics does Taplines cover?
The podcast is about Beer, Brewing, History, Podcasts, Arts, Craft Beer and Food.
What is the most popular episode on Taplines?
The episode title 'How Budweiser's Iconic 'Whassup!' Ad Went Down' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Taplines?
The average episode length on Taplines is 52 minutes.
How often are episodes of Taplines released?
Episodes of Taplines are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Taplines?
The first episode of Taplines was released on Apr 11, 2023.
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