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Another positive week put beer $$ sales up more than 1% with volume down just 0.5% yr-to-date thru Mar 22 in Circana multi-outlet + convenience data. Trends continue to oscillate week-to-week, and ran nearly 1 pt slower in latest 4 wks with $$ up just 0.4%, volume down 1.4%. Circana off-prem trends seem to be outpacing all-channel trends, but beer's clearly off to a much better start in Q1 scans. Big reason for better trends so far: above premium segments are collectively back to gaining over 1 share of the beer/FMB/cider category thru Q1 scans with share gains picking up pace lately. For the year, imports are back to growth in these channels with $$ up 3%, share up 0.5 pts, and hard seltzer $$ are growing (+2%) and gaining share (+0.1) for the first time since 2021. Superpremium $$ accelerated up 7%, still posting the top segment share gain, +0.6. Even as it slowed, non-alc beer is still up 15% and +0.2 pts. Hard cider kept up solid growth, +6% by $$ and +0.05 share. Plus, craft beer $$ sales were down just 0.2% (excluding NAs) and FMBs off just 1%. Down less than 0.4 share between the two of 'em.It's not all bad in mainstream segments either. Subpremium $$ are up slightly (+0.3%) tho losing 0.1 share. Coors and Yuengling premium families are both up nearly 1% by $$, holding share, driven by Coors Banquet growth and Yuengling's new mkts. Yet premium segment overall keeps losing the most ground with $$ sales down 2.5%, -0.9 share. Bud family (-0.6) and Miller Lite (-0.3) drove virtually all of the drop.Top Brand Fams Driving Segment Improvements; Constellation Top 4 Fams +0.7 Share; Guinness' St Patrick's Pop Some segments can attribute the vast majority of their improvement this yr to a single brand fam, whether its Michelob (+8%) for superpremium, Busch (+4.5%) for subpremium or White Claw (+6%) for hard seltzer. But hard cider growth is evenly split between Angry Orchard up 7% and all others up 6%. NA beer growth is driven by Mich Ultra Zero fam most of all, but Athletic, Corona and a handful of craft NAs and smaller new brands are adding sizable gains as well.For imports, it's pretty much all Constellation. Modelo family accelerated in latest 4 wks, now up 4.5% by $$ with volume up 3% for the year thru Mar 22. It's back to posting the 2d-largest growth of any brand fam, only behind Michelob. That's as Pacifico and Victoria are both growing $$ over 30% YTD, the fastest growth trends among top 50 beer brand fams. Corona beer family $$ improved to +1%, holding share even excluding Corona NA's strong double-digit growth. Collectively, STZ's top 4 brand fams are up 0.7 by $$ and volume, making STZ the clear top beer share gainer in scans thru calendar Q1.But Guinness is increasingly chipping in for imports too in tracked off-prem channels where it's typically underrepresented. For the last 2 wks thru Mar 22 surrounding key St Patrick's Day holiday, Guinness $$ sales grew 8% with volume up 6% in Circana multi-outlet + convenience data. It rose to the 14th-largest beer brand family by $$ overall in that time. Guinness is growing even faster YTD with $$ up 9%. Gotta note, Guinness MULC trends aren't always indicative of its St Patrick's Day performance overall; last yr Guinness sales declined low-to-mid singles in this time period vs 2024, but the brand still grew solidly all-channel. This yr, pretty much all signs point to another strong St Patrick's for Guinness overall.

Beer $$ Up 1.2%, Vol -0.5% YTD in Circana MULC; Above Premium Segments +1 Share; STZ Strength; Guinness' St Patrick's Pop

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