Beer and Wine Trends: Falsie Pints and Chic Boxes

WSJ -- Beer prices at bars and restaurants have risen over the past few months, as prices of hops and barley have skyrocketed and retail business has slowed alongside the economy.

Some restaurants have replaced 16-ounce pint glasses with 14 ouncers -- a type of glassware one bartender called a "falsie" (see picture above).

And customers are complaining that bartenders are increasingly putting less than 16 ounces of beer in a pint glass, filling up the extra space with foam. Two of the world's biggest glassware makers, Libbey and Cardinal International, say orders of smaller beer glasses have risen over the past year.

Mainstreet -- Drinking wine out of a box, it’s pretty fair to say, has over the years generally not been the path to recognition by one’s peers as a gentleman or a lady. Problem drinker is more like it.

Indeed, as a conduit, wine from a box is usually lumped with the likes of keeping a cheap keg in the garage or stocking your liquor cabinet with Mad Dog. But the times, it seems, they are a changing.

Increasingly, some very good wineries have taken to packaging their product in a box. Boxed wines, in fact, have become the fastest-growing segment of the industry.

“Boxes are very, very chic now,” says Leslie Sbrocco, author of The Simple & Savvy Wine Guide: Buying, Pairing, and Sharing for All.

(Thanks to Craig Newmark for the pointer on box wine.)