This page is for anyone considering stocking cask conditioned beer but hasn’t yet.
The aim of this discussion is to present you with the facts about why you should sell it, how it should be looked after and what the benefits will be to your business.
The following text can be found in a report commissioned by the pressure group ‘Why Handpull’ who represent regional brewers, SIBA, IFBB, CAMRA and the Casque Mark Trust called ‘The intelligent Choice – The Real State of the Market for Cask Ale’ by Pete Brown
Cask Conditioned Beer – Often called ‘Real Ale’ it is a living product that continues to ferment in the cask. It’s a complex, natural product that requires expert handling.
With this in mind, real ale stands out as a product. It is something different from the mass produced brands and has several unique selling points which act as exceptional marketing hooks.
You may think that small breweries are at a disadvantage in terms of not being able to spend as much on marketing their brands as the large players. And whilst this may be true as a small independent local brewer we have many more advantages over them!
Buying local is big! It’s as simple as that. Customers are becoming savvy and think about what they buy and their affect on the environment and the sustainability of the producer. In short drinkers are increasingly buying with their conscience.
As a local pub you can tap into this huge opportunity as real ale has reinvented its image.
The cask ale market is worth around £1.4 billion a year, and accounts for 11% of on-trade beer volume. This is a healthy chunk of business but also provides plenty of room for growth.
The top-line decline in the ale market gives a misleading impression of what is really happening. Most of the losses are coming from the four big multinational brewers who dominate the UK beer market, and are withdrawing support from their cask ale brands in favour of their global lager brands.
Where regional and local brewers are supporting their beers, cask ale is seeing strong volume and value growth. Against the backdrop of a 5% decline in the total beer market, many cask ale brewers are enjoying volume and value growth. Regional/independent brewers are growing by an average of 7.5% year on year.
Cask ale is therefore forecast to return to growth within the next few years, as the decline from the multinationals levels out, and the growth of the locals and regionals continues.
In pubs where cask ale is stocked and kept well, it accounts for as much as 40% of total beer sales.
• Cask ale drinkers are mainly affluent, upmarket people who are prepared to pay more for quality
• Cask drinkers determine pub choice – stocking good cask ale drives business even with people who do not drink it
• Cask increases total beer sales, and total pub turnover, by as much as 20% versus pubs that don’t stock it
• Cask ale increases profitability. Cask ale drinkers go to pubs more often, and stay longer – if the beer is good.
• Cask ale says a lot about your business – stocking it is a real point of difference.
Even non-drinkers know that cask ale needs to be treated with love and care. If a pub is known to stock decent cask ale, it casts a halo over the entire business, from the quality of the food to the cleanliness of the toilets.
It’s important to stock the right range of cask ales. Quality is paramount, and suffers if pubs stock too many types of ale with too low throughput.
Research now exists to show the optimal range of cask ale depending on how much of it you sell and we at The Brew Company will be happy to share this research with you – just ask!
The Brew Company’s brands provide confidence to drinkers and are a point of entry for those who may be new to cask ale.
Then, when a bigger range is stocked, rarer, more unusual or eclectic beers, local, specialist and seasonal guest ales, provide valuable diversity.
Check out our range on the ‘Our Beers’ Link and contact us for advice on which of our beers we believe will make the difference to your sales.
• Relative to other drinks, cask ale is a locally made product that usually has far fewer food miles than other drinks. Almost a third of adults (14 million people) would be likely to visit a pub that stocks cask ale from local breweries.
• Cask ale is the perfect alcoholic drink for a society increasingly worried by the impact of binge drinking. It is drunk with respect by more discerning drinkers. It is relatively low in alcohol and suited to quieter, more mellow drinking occasions.
Premium means premium
In the on-trade, cask ale is less expensive to buy than most other beers, despite being a more flavourful beer, crafted from finer ingredients.
Yet in the off-trade, premium bottled ale sells at a price premium to lager.
The fact that sales are growing with this higher price point demonstrates emphatically that there is a demand for ale, and that people are prepared to pay more for it.
We live in a branded age – not just products, but organisations, people, even ideas – everything is now a brand. But nowhere are brands more important than in alcoholic drinks.
For some, this emotional link comes from provenance – the fact that this is an English beer, or comes from a particular part of the country.
A key attitudinal message from The Brew Company’s brands is that they stand for no-nonsense unpretentiousness, a useful stance to take against the fussiness and fakery of spin and pretentiousness that infect so many walks of modern life.
But arguably the most successful campaigns are those that deal with character. ‘Character’ is a great advertising idea because it says something about both the beer and the drinker.
The Brew Company’s beers have taste, depth and flavour – product character – and are made for, and drunk by, people who are a little more discerning and confident, who know their own mind and have substance – people of character
Cellar management
Cask Marque’s research shows that keeping the cellar at the right temperature, ensuring coolers are kept running and grills are dust free, and that seals on cellar doors are intact, all add up to keeping cask ale in perfect condition.
Cellar management should be the heart of any pub’s business. If this is right, it benefits the entire business. Cask Marque’s research shows that successful cellar management can improve beer yields by up to 7%, and sales by 3%.
Temperature
Leading cask ale brewers all agree that to keep cask ale in peak condition, it should
always be served at between 11-13ºC.
Line cleaning
As cask ale is a live product, there’s every reason to treat it with the same health
and safety standards as food. Beer from dirty lines suffers in terms of quality and
taste, and can even be harmful to health. A 2006 survey by Punch Taverns showed that those who cleaned lines every week saw a sales growth of 2%.
Glassware
Cask Marque research shows that dirty glasses prevent the formation of a head and make the beer flat and lifeless, so glasses should be renovated (special wash cycle) on a regular basis.
The serve
If all the above is done well, it should be much easier to serve a pint of beer properly with minimal wastage. Bar staff need to be trained to pour the beer so it looks attractive and elegant.
One of the biggest barriers to people drinking and perhaps even stocking cask ale is the stereotype of who drinks it: a few old men in cloth caps, and some beardy obsessive hobbyists.
We’re not denying these people exist, but hard data shows they do not represent the real majority of people who love cask ale. Increasingly, it’s seen as a premium product – that attracts an affluent audience.
Research commissioned by CAMRA and carried out by independent market researchers TNS shows that there are 5.4 million people who claim to be cask ale drinkers, or just over one in ten adults. When you strip out those people who don’t go to pubs at all, this figure represents 15% of all pub-goers.
Most cask ale drinkers – 60% of the total – are aged between 35 and 64.
But rather than strictly being an ‘old man’s’ drink, we can see that there’s a sharp increase in the likelihood of drinking cask ale when people hit their thirties – it’s actually quite a broad age spread.
Only one in ten drinkers is female – but that still means there are over half a million
female cask ale drinkers. Anecdotal evidence from cask ale pubs, and research carried out for the Morning Advertiser, show that in good cask ale pubs, as many as one in five drinkers are female.
Cask ale is undeniably perceived as a very masculine drink, but where it is presented and served properly, it is proven to attract more women. There is nothing intrinsic in the product to exclude women from drinking it, and women therefore represent a huge opportunity for real volume growth.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of cask ale drinkers is their affluence: 78% of cask ale drinkers are social grade ABC1*
*This is the socio-demographic classification system used in the UK: A = upper middle class higher managerial, administrative or professional; B = middle class intermediate managerial, administrative or professional; C1 = lower middle class supervisory or clerical, junior managerial, administrative or professional; C2 = skilled working class skilled manual workers; D = working class
semi and unskilled manual workers; E = those at lowest level of earnings – state pensioners or widows (no other earner), casual or lowest grade workers.
So the future looks secure for cask ale.
Our brands have as much thought behind them from the names themselves to the colour and look of the pump clip, all designed to help you sell more.
Our recipes have been carefully crafted and tested in pubs with very discerning clientele with great success.
With our consistent quality and your understanding of cask ale we can elevate your business to another level.
