Kate Bernot
@kbernot.bsky.social
Lead analyst at Feel Goods Insights Bylines in The Washington Post, Craft Beer & Brewing, Bon Appetit, Imbibe, elsewhere @nagbw.bsky.social’s Writer of the Year 2025 University of Montana Law class of 2029 📍Missoula, MT
The language and aesthetics of beverage are all over the beauty and skincare aisle lately. (Lassi Lips Lip Oil, Seltzer Spritz Hairspray, Espresso ‘Tini Lip Balm ...) This isn't surprising, and I see more overlap ahead. I dig into why, and what's next: feelgoodsinsights.com/analysis/bev...
These stickers are now for sale via The Fingers Shop (just put a note saying you want this design specifically.) All proceeds support more independent journalism about drinking in America: dinfontay.bigcartel.com/product/fing...
MISSOULA! MISSOULA WE HAVE A FOOD TRUCK LOCATOR AGAIN!!! www.zootowneats.com
ZooTown Eats
Missoula food truck menus, locations, and today's schedule.
zootowneats.com
TIL the American Museum of Tort Law's logo is a flaming Pinto, 10/10 no notes
SOURCE CALL: If you work or recently worked at Maine Beer Co. and would like to tell me what Dan Kleban is like as a boss, I'm all ears. Email me dave@dinfontay.com or securely text dinfontay.11 on Signal. Anonymity available. (RTs appreciated!)
"In terms of rituals and behaviors, at-home shooters are one of the final frontiers." — @kbernot.bsky.social feelgoodsinsights.com/analysis/twi...
Beer pitchers are underrated. For the price of two cold Coors Lights, you can have four lukewarm Coors Lights.
Strikes me too that in super-crowded cold cases where it's unclear what half the drinks even *are* (hard tea? lemon vodka RTD? spiked Gatorade?) retro lager branding conveys "beer," plain and simple. You don't even have to read to figure it's a light, yellow, effervescent beer.
Brian Miller@b-miller.bsky.social · 4w agoa good piece about can designs that signal to buyers "don't worry, I'm not an IPA" (the first canned craft beer, Dale's Pale Ale, was introduced in 2002, is quite hoppy, and strangely has since evolved their can design to feel like more of a mass market lager throwback)
What's with all the new lager brands wanting to look like they're 50 years old? I dig into the dynamics behind the retro branding boom for WaPo: www.washingtonpost.com/food/2026/07...
New beers are doing everything they can to look old
A fleet of retro-branded light lagers is coming to the beer aisle and tapping into shifting consumer tastes.
washingtonpost.com
"Shooters satisfy a number of priorities for younger LDA on-premise consumers. They’re flavor-led, relatively low-alcohol compared to shots, inexpensive, social, and provide a unique ritual experience that a drinker generally isn’t going to recreate at home." feelgoodsinsights.com/analysis/led...
Not pretending I've never written something that required a correction but if an outlet ever saw fit to issue a correction to a retraction of my reporting I would yeet myself into the sun.
Kate Bernot@kbernot.bsky.social · last mo.Best part of this debacle might be the correction to the retraction
Also worth noting that this range is also where macro lagers (Coors, Miller Lite, Mich Ultra, etc.) have squarely lived forever. And if you want that ABV with a local angle, there are regional versions like Natty Boh, Narragansett, Rainier, etc. Hard for craft to differentiate on the ABV alone.
Dave Infante@dinfontay.com · last mo.the american beer market has a "missing middle" when it comes to abv. but as @kbernot.bsky.social has reported extensively, even though people *say* they want mid-strength beers, there's very little demand for them at scale. Eg.:
"For years, provocateurs have suggested alcohol is becoming the new tobacco. By this, they mean that alcohol is falling out of favor socially thanks to more widespread understanding of its health risks. We now have years of post-COVID data to indicate this isn’t true." — @kbernot.bsky.social
Some UM students about to raid this church’s food pantry like raccoons
In our latest Feel Goods Insights newsletter: Plenty of data shows a disconnect between what young wine drinkers expect from a wine and what they perceive. Could wine packaging be part of the problem? And why is wine uniquely opposed to visual cues? feelgoodsinsights.com/analysis/you...
The curious case of why UK and Canada CPI use grocery scanner data but the US can’t A deep dive on why the US's—the world's most important economy—inflation statistics enhancement progress has surprisingly... https://en.econreporter.com/58106/why-uk-canada-cpi-use-grocery-scanner-data-us-cant/
The curious case of why UK and Canada CPI use grocery scanner data but the US can’t
A deep dive on why the US's—the world's most important economy—inflation statistics enhancement progress has surprisingly lagged compared to the UK and Canada?
en.econreporter.com
👀 Florida has surpassed Minnesota as the nation's largest hemp-derived THC beverage market, per @hempbevalliance.bsky.social/VIP data for CY 2025.
Paying subscribers get exclusive access to The Fingers Podcast! It's how I publish longform interviews with interesting people from the wild world of booze—and beyond. Here's a recent episode with @kbernot.bsky.social:
Decoding zoomer/boomer bev-alc doomerism
Feel Goods' Kate Bernot on how demographic and workforce shifts are rocking the booze business
fingers.email
[Utah] Jazz Man Mark@jazzmanmark.com · 2mo ago@dinfontay.com i don't how how I missed the podcast is back online Looking forward to these - you do great interviews
A newsletter that’s deeply reported *and* a pleasure to read—if you don’t subscribe already, do yourself a favor and fix that.
Dave Infante@dinfontay.com · last mo.Paying subscribers from inside the industry and beyond it love Fingers, and you will too! I'm currently offering a massive 60% discount for Fingers' 6th anniversary, making it cheaper than every before to try it out for a year: www.fingers.email/upgrade?offe...
Despite how some in the beer industry refer to the hard seltzer "bubble," malt-based seltzers currently have greater share in U.S. convenience stores than craft beer. *And* they grew sales volume in that channel by ~3% over the past 52W.
SCOOP from @by-cjewett.bsky.social & me: Markwayne Mullin urged the Department of Health and Human Service to remove warnings from the FDA website about the health risks of the gas station drug kratom. Mullin owns equity in a leading kratom company called Botanic Tonics that could have benefited.
How an Addictive Gas Station Drug Found Allies in Trump’s Cabinet
nytimes.com
For my debut at @newrepublic.com, I compared the performative sobriety of prominent GOP operatives and manosphere podcasters (but I repeat myself) with the more complicated realities reshaping the American right's relationship with alcohol.
Are Republicans Really Quitting Booze?
It’s hardly a neo-Prohibition movement, but MAGA personalities and far-right trolls are swearing off drinking—for predictably weird reasons.
newrepublic.com
Today we learned there are significant differences in the profanity guidelines of the @chicagotribune.com and @chicago.suntimes.com
Some really crazy cases in here - cop looked up ex-girlfriend and family in Flock 100+ times - cop stalked wife giving "test" as reason - cop searched one plate 395 times in 10 months; was later fired Cops keep getting arrested for using Flock to stalk people www.404media.co/cops-keep-ge...
Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People
There have been more than a dozen cases around the country where police use Flock to obsessively and illegally stalk people.
404media.co
I'm interested in talking to workers about how A.I. is affecting their careers, and how they're adapting. Have a story to tell? Share it here: www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/b...
Is A.I. affecting your career? We want to hear from you.
nytimes.com
Writing about functional beverages while consuming the GOAT fxbev
What does it mean for US bev-alc that the very wealthy will be the sole drivers of alcohol spending growth in the near future? Listen to my chat with Dave, and read my full analysis for Feel Goods: feelgoodsinsights.com/analysis/alc...
Dave Infante@dinfontay.com · 2mo agoHere's @kbernot.bsky.social on the World Data Lab report that virtually all growth in bev-alc spending will soon come from the ultra-wealthy:
