Craft Price Increases Bring Share Gains?

The soft economy in the US is starting to show its fangs in March, albeit tiny little baby fangs so far, which actually invert to velvet when approached by a craft brand. Supermarket scanner data from IRI for basically the month of March shows "softer high-end trends and some early signs that pricing could be heating up in premium beers," says a glum Bill Pecoriello from Morgan Stanley. But Bill acknowledges that we expected this softness due to Easter shift.