What a time! With rapid pace of change and faster flow of news, we're all running fast, maybe even faster than we would like. But now is the time of year where we all hope to slow it down, to pause and reflect. Here at BMI, we remain tremendously grateful and appreciative to cover such a fun and dynamic industry and have such great readers. Our coverage is enhanced tremendously by your input, perspective and wisdom, especially during these challenging times. With so much wild flux in the beer biz, further push into Beyond Beer and blurring of lines with NA bevs, we count on you to help us make sense of it all. Thanks.

Dizzying series of announcements, official filings and comments reflect a noticeable uptick in federal activity by chief alc bev regulators and many other agencies. Some might call it activism, others may say the feds just doing their jobs. Nobody knows how this will all develop, tho. And big questions remain about not only the ultimate outcomes of planned and in-process activity, but also how long they'll take. Either way, they'll have an impact.

Better mainstream $$ trends in off-prem channels, fueled by stronger subpremium growth, significantly changed share dynamics vs above-premium segments collectively in scans since fall price increases were implemented. As top subpremium brands accelerated and megabrand lagers improved amid big price hikes, above-premium segments collectively slowed to $$ +0.2 for 4 wks and +0.4 for 8 wks thru Nov 27 vs +1.3 share YTD in IRI multi-outlet + convenience. And certain above-premium segments seemingly impacted more than others. (Editor's note: in separate NielsenIQ data, mainstream segments gained share of $$ for 4 wks as subpremium gains more pronounced. Despite differences, both datasets show trends movin' in same direction toward mainstream improvement and subpremium growth. Improvement less pronounced by volume, but still visible.)

This time last year, BMI wrote about beer shipments on track for best gains in a decade in 2020-2021. But beer volume on pace to lose virtually all it gained (and more) over last 2 yrs in 2022. In fact, if current pace keeps up thru year-end, US beer shipments would be lookin' at biggest annual decline in the last decade-plus, slippin' below 2019 levels. Tho beer $$ an increasingly brighter picture following hefty fall price increases. And following 2 yrs in a row of big upward revisions from TTB, full-year volume picture could still improve, particularly for domestic taxpaid totals/trends.

Ice beers had lotsa beer folks hot under the collar this week in 1993. Labatt was making legal argument that it deserved right to trademark "ice beer," "ice brewed" and other variants of those words, based on its unique process used to make its ice beers, reported INSIGHTS. Lawyers for Molson/Miller and AB said not so fast. Besides them, Heileman, Pabst and Genny all had ice beers in mkt too. "These court battles remind of Miller effort to trademark 'light beer' and AB attempt to protect 'low alcohol.' Both failed as courts deemed light and low-alcohol beers were common, descriptive terms," noted INSIGHTS. That turned out to be the case with ice too.

Keurig Dr Pepper is makin' extra use of its "extra free cash flow to do M&A" before year-end, tho solely buyin' in non-alc (including NA beer) spaces so far. Yet latest move will have significant repercussions and ripple effects in beer distribution. KDP spending $863 mil for 30% ownership stake in Nutrabolt, maker of C4 Energy, to establish "strategic partnership" that includes "long-term sales and distribution arrangement that leverages KDP's powerful go-to-market capabilities," cos announced this morn (shortly after our sibling pub Beverage Business INSIGHTS reported on this deal).

The "extreme bending of the price elasticity model" is one of biggest developments in non-alc bevs in 2022, said Bev Digest editor Duane Stanford at Future Smarts conference. Key takeaway is "incredibly strong pricing environment," noted Goldman Sachs managing director Bonnie Herzog, "with a key question being - will the strong pricing continue into next year." Beer pricing not as "extreme," but following outsized fall price hikes, pay close attention to NAs for clues about what could happen in beer.