Call it the Halloween effect (and maybe something to do with election jitters?): Latest Nielsen numbers, the four weeks to Nov. 5, saw overall beer volumes up 1.4% and dollars up 3.1%, significantly outpacing the YTD trends of 0.6% and 2.9%, respectively. That's even better than the prior four week's trends: the quad week to 10/29 had seen volumes slightly outpace the YTD trend, at 0.6% vs. 0.5% (dollars were up 2.3% vs. 2.9% YTD).