Distributors: Below Premiums Are Up

The suggestion that popular-priced beers, including malt liquors, are growing in certain pockets of the country struck a nerve with many distributors and brewery execs we spoke with today. The remarks from distributors tended to cluster around the notion that scan data skews toward:1. grocery stores, which is not particularly a budget beer channel, and2. chains, which aren't particularly a budget beer channel either. The insinuation is that budgets are growing in independent c-stores undetected.Tough to prove, though. But lots