St. Pat’s Day: A Canary in the Coal Mine for Beer?

Dear Client: How’d beer do in St. Patrick’s Day scans? In a word: Soft. While beer seems to have seen good holiday results on-prem — with BeerBoard reporting that St. Patrick’s Day draft volumes were up 21% vs. last holiday in its data — the off-premise trends are sobering.  In Circana/IRI data week ended 03/19, beer dollar sales were down 3.2% vs. YA, and up just 0.9% vs. prior week.  But volumes looked a lot bleaker, down 8% vs. YA.