I have been pondering the future of cask beer. I have also been reading cask beer sales statistics. It has not been an easy read for me. I am a big fan of cask beer, but it appears I am a dying breed. This has made me question whether the future is a vibrant beer scene where the beautiful natural flavours and carbonation of cask play an important role, or whether cask beer dwindles and sits on the periphery of the beer scene only available in a small number of specialist pubs?

You might, at this point, ask the valid question why we should care. Can we not let market forces decide and if cask beer dies, then let it?

I would answer that by saying that market forces are influenced by other factors and not just the drinkers’ interest, such as how the marketing budget is spent by companies. I would say that they spend their money to get the most reward. Cask, with its smaller profit margin, is not worth it while keg beer with its bigger margin, is. What is true of the brewer is also true of the retailer and margin is king.

Cask beer is one of the cheapest beers on the bar. Couple this with the effort needed to look after it properly, makes it one of the least profitable drinks for the pub.

Then we have the government. They apply taxes, most notably duty, in this case. Why is beer taxed differently to cider? Why do small brewers get duty relief and big brewers don’t? Why is cask beer taxed the same as all beer? Cask beer is taxed differently to all other beers, as there is a sediment allowance. Why is this not applied to bottle conditioned beers? The government does influence the market because it influences margin.

What I am trying to point out is that the market is influenced by a number of forces outside of the drinkers’ desires. What I would like to do is to influence those forces to act in the interest of cask beer.

Ok, at this point you might accept that the market is not entirely working towards what the drinker wants but then again, you might ask why we should care about cask beer?

I can only answer that by explaining why I care about cask beer and give you my reasons. I would hope that you might find some agreement with at least some of my points here.

Cask beer is unique, but it didn’t use to be. At one point, most of the world’s beer would have been in cask. However now, for whatever reason, Britain stands pretty much alone in its production of cask beer. Cask beer can rightly claim it is the Beer of Britain.

Cask beer is served at a higher temperature and a lower CO2 than keg beer. It is less processed and this adds up to a flavour profile and mouth-feel that keg cannot match.

The process of producing cask beer involves the landlord and the brewer. It is the beer that cements the relationship between them. Cask beer cannot exist without the pub and the best pubs cannot exist without cask beer. Cask beer influences, and is an indicator of, the standards and values of a pub.

There is a tradition behind cask beer that does not exist in keg beer. Like a lot of people, I have a respect for tradition.

So why are people not flocking to drink cask beer. I will give you some reasons, but firstly I will give you a quote from Pete Brown writing in the Morning Advertiser.

Cask right now is hurting, really badly. It’s in such dire straits that since I stopped writing the Cask Report three years ago, that report no longer gives statistics for cask’s year-on-year performance, because it’s so bad…the reason for this is not the growth of ‘craft keg’ but issues with the quality of Cask Ale cellaring and dispense.

Ask anyone who knows the market as a whole, and they’ll tell you. But here is what I say.

It is not sexy enough. If Americans made cask beer, then brewers around the world would do so too. Just look what they have done for sours! But they cannot because their distribution chains and their pub cellars are not suitable.

Quality is a problem for cask. Too many pints are substandard mainly due to lack of throughput and poor cellar practice. Cask beer is susceptible to misuse precisely because of its lack of processing which is one of its main attributes. Keg has a longer shelf life and greater stability which leads to less input from the landlord. Add the margin improvement and guess which one the landlord likes to sell.

The removal of Trade Quality advisors. When I first came into the industry many breweries employed people to visit pubs check on the beer quality and offer advice to the landlord. Sadly, many have got rid of this position sacrificed on the altar of cost cutting. Cask beer needs them more than keg beer does.

So what can be done to improve cask beer quality? Well I think bodies like Cask Marque and CAMRA would be interested in this and are actively trying to improve the situation, but they are failing.

Why?

I think it is because the margin is not there to support extra work to make the beer better. Landlords are so busy now that they spend their time supporting the more profitable parts of their business, and it’s the same with brewers. This is the reason so many brewers do not brew cask.

If you go to any pub in Britain and look at the price list, what do you observe? I see cask as perhaps the cheapest beer and very little price differential between all the cask beers being served with often the strongest cask beer being served cheaper than the weakest lager or cider.

Now, if I tell you that duty is the biggest single cost of any beer or cider then what do you think the margins are on the different beers?

There are a number of points that I can draw from the above. Most beer styles have a premium and a standard version, cask beer struggles to have a premium version. The margin on non-gas beers is bigger, too.

So what can be done? Could we have a premium version of cask beer or could we just increase the price? This must be difficult because if we could it would have been done by now.

So what does that leave us? I think the solution lies in improving the margin for the brewer and the landlord. I don’t think dropping the price to encourage drinkers will work; more brewers would just stop making cask.

For me, increasing margin would improve quality. Brewers could afford to invest in new casks and maybe bring back Trade Quality or pay Cask Marque to do it for them. Landlords could afford to spend more time on cask beer and maybe follow the advice from Cask Marque or the Trade Quality Advisor.

It would also improve sales as a consequence of improved quality while also encouraging innovation from the brewers

So how do we improve margin. We could try to produce a premium version of cask beer but there are a number of problems with this. However, I will be speaking to several brewers about these problems and looking at possible solutions

There is another interested party in all of this, though. Not the brewer, not the drinker and not the landlord, but her Majesty’s government. The government makes more out of cask beer than any other party. So can’t we ask for duty relief on cask beer?

Here is another interesting fact. A cask beer at 4.1% ABV pays £78.22 per hl while for cider at 4.1% ABV, you’re paying £40.38 per hl.

There is roughly 176 pints in a hl so that becomes 44p per pint for beer and for cider, 22p per pint.

So I ask the question, why cask beer can’t be taxed like cider? So come on CAMRA, instead of playing around trying to get one or two pence off all beer, why not try and get twenty pence off cask beer. Think how that would unite your movement. Would you not get support from SIBA too? What about the great British public? Would they not see the righteousness of your cause?

In the post-Brexit world this is possible, plus the government might just be minded to introduce a popular benefit of Brexit. Those that are now worrying about how much tax the chancellor would be giving up, you’re looking at about one year’s standard increase. Cask beer is only about 9 percent of the total market and therefore 20p off this is about equal to 2p off all beer, something the beer industry asks for every year without any success.

Again, I will try to do something about this. I will be travelling the country talking to drinkers and beer writers about the future of cask beer. If they agree with me that something should be done, then I will try to get this moving. If not, I would reluctantly drop this. The reason being that if I cannot persuade interested parties then how can I persuade the government? Banging your head against the wall has no future.

There is maybe one group that might not support this. The big brewers.

So why would the bigger brewers support this? Maybe to bask in the warm glow of doing the right thing and we can all reflect that maybe, just maybe, they are human too. Oh and perhaps they should start brewing cask again.

Over to you CAMRA and SIBA