Better late than never

A promotional photo of a new PBR/Grillo’s pickles collaboration beer

cage match

With a killer kicker from Sonu Varghese:
Whether at the grocery store or the gas pump, “one person’s inflation,” he said, “is often just someone else’s margin expansion.”

Tariffs? Inflation? War? For all the turmoil in recent years, nothing has stopped U.S. corporations from earning record profits. There's little reason to think the latest energy shock will be any different.
Smart story from @talsmith.bsky.social:
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/b...

Beer Will Be Feeling the Effects of War for Months From aluminum costs to consumer spending, knock-on effects from the conflict in Iran will continue to reverberate and hit breweries’ bottom lines. And even if oil shipments through the Strait of Hormu...

Breweries likely will see high fuel and input costs as the most immediate and direct results of the war in Iran, but it’s the conflict’s threats to consumer spending that may prove to be the most long-lasting and pernicious.

www.brewingindustryguide.com/war-in-iran-...

TD Cowen cited rising aluminum costs as a reason to lower its guidance on certain beverage companies, including Tilray. The Iran war’s effect on the global supply chain further nudged U.S. aluminum prices to new highs: The Midwest Premium rose 22% in the first 3 months of 2026.

In North Carolina, beer and wine wholesaler Tryon Distributing saw gas costs for its fleet tick $15,000 over budget in March, according to VP of strategic development Melissa Johnston. She expects that to grow to $20,000 over budget for April.

Beer Will Be Feeling the Effects of War for Months From aluminum costs to consumer spending, knock-on effects from the conflict in Iran will continue to reverberate and hit breweries’ bottom lines. And even if oil shipments through the Strait of Hormu...

The war in Iran has knock-on effects for the beer industry in the form of higher fuel costs, higher input prices (including aluminum … again), and reduced consumer spending.

Even if the conflict were to miraculously resolve tomorrow, effects are likely to persist well into 2027:

@willcleveland13.bsky.social had a nice piece about taproom pricing this week that included mention of a brewery *lowering* the price of its flagship IPA from $8 to $7

U.S. Imports of Wine, Beer, and Spirits, 1992–2025.

From their peak value of $6.217 billion in 2022, U.S. wine imports fell by 14.9% to $5.292 billion in 2025. Much more extreme: during the same period, spirits imports fell from $12.629 billion to $8.764 billion — a decline of 30.6%.

Cool school! I very much wanted to go there but they didn’t have a journalism program 😔

‘Pawn shops can offer timely signals about consumer strain that may not be clear in official statistics. The business is countercyclical. If pawn shops are doing well, it probably means that some part of the economy is not.’ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Three new podcast episodes and they're a mini-series whether you meant to binge them or not: Ep 13: Chain Sales Decoded — Ep 14: Scan Data Decoded — Ep 15: Read the Room with @kbernot.bsky.social of @feelgoodsinsights joins me in an interview.

notyourhobbymarketing.com/podcast

oh man. How did it hold up? We watched the whole two seasons in my fifth or sixth grade science class.

Oh, we're watching Voyage of the Mimi (starring Ben Affleck) on LaserDisc.

Hi all! Still looking for more people in middle-class households (especially women) to answer a couple short questions about their alcohol spending. Thanks!

new yorker headline: THIS EASTER, AN AMERICAN POPE CONFRONTS AN AMERICAN WAR

*movie trailer guy voice*

wow so true really makes you think

A screen grab from a beer trade group email reads: “ don’t miss out on some fun days to enjoy a beer: Good Friday, Easter, Sunday, tax day

You can’t spell Pontius Pilate without IPA, after all

Just adjusted my Chat settings so you can DM now. Send me your first name and your job/location and we can go from there. Thank you so much!

Fixed now, thank you!

** Folks who work in alcohol: You're wonderful but I'd prefer to speak with households that don't have a professional tie to alcohol. Thanks!

I should probably add an asterisk that I'd prefer to speak to people who don't work in/too close to alcohol, but thank you for offering!

Ha, I think you might have a different orientation toward it than others but I appreciate the offer, Seth! :)

Are you in the U.S. middle class? Try our income calculator | Pew Research Center %post_excerpt%

Middle-class definitions also vary based on household size and geography, so feel free to use this calculator: www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/...

Hi folks. As part of my reporting, I'd like to talk to middle-class households about their alcohol purchasing. If that's you, please DM. (Your name can be withheld if desired.)

* I'll use the Pew definition of middle class, which is households making $56K-$167K.

Because fascism has the most impoverished art and aesthetics, they're quite possibly unable to discern the clear meaning of cultural products.

"We sell way more Cold Smoke in the summer," says KettleHouse founder Tim O'Leary. "On the river, I'll float by somebody holding up a can of Cold Smoke and I'm like 'You gotta be kidding me. It's 95 degrees out.'"

^ I can also attest to the absolutely deranged phenomenon of river Scotch ales. 😂

KettleHouse asserts that, pre-pandemic, Cold Smoke had the most tap handles of any beer in Montana bars. (Some bars only serve Bud OR MC, but nearly all serve Cold Smoke.)

Some nuggets (story was from 2021): That year, Scotch ales sold more in Montana chainr etail than wheat beers, brown ales, and hefeweizens combined. And that doesn't count taproom and on-prem sales where the style is even more ubiquitous.