Many Growing Spirits Cos. are … Brewers

Dear Client: In the last two or three weeks, industry consultant Bump Williams says that his conversations with industry folks in all three tiers "tend to be more optimistic than pessimistic", as beer trends improve in the latest scans while wine and even spirits are softer. We note control state volumes for spirits were flat, while dollar sales in Neilsen for the two weeks ending Nov. 18 were up 4.2%, below the four-week trend of 5.3%.  "Earlier discussions tended to