Independent beer regulator Cask Marque held its annual Cask Report on Thursday 27 September, which outlined the threats facing traditional ale producers in 2018.

The cask market is in trouble, with overall volumes down by 6.8% since 2017, according to the report. While a decline is not wholly unexpected given the rate of pub closures across Britain, the situation, it said, is “worse than it should be.”

Cask ale is losing out to competitors in the craft beer and premium lager sectors. While the overall on-trade beer market declined by 1.6% over the past 12 months, premium lager has actually risen by 2.2%.

But while craft brewers have prioritised advertising kegged beers, cask still plays an important role in the on-trade. It makes up 55% of the overall on-trade category, according to figures from the CGA. A survey of 900 licensees carried out by Cask Marque found that an overwhelming majority (84%) believe that cask is “as important to their business or even more important than it was four years ago.”

“17 pubs a week are closing, ripping the hearts out of communities – but thriving sales of cask ale can help keep pubs open,” according to the report’s editor Matt Eley.

A number of high-profile figures in the UK’s brewing sector, including Cask Marque director Paul Nunny, beer writer Pete Brown, Heineken category manager Andy Wingate and Brewhouse & Kitchen CEO Kris Gumbrell spoke at the report launch on Thursday, outlining their views on what is going wrong in cask beer, and what the industry can do to save the tradition.

We’ve outlined the key issues facing brewers who produce a large quantity of cask beer, and ways that businesses and regulatory bodies are already trying to fix them.

1. Pub visits are falling

Pubs

Cask’s decline may be out of step with the industry overall, but the impact of the declining pub sector shouldn’t be discounted, according to the report.

Revenue from beer in the on-trade has fallen significantly over the past decade, with an average rate of decline at 3.7% annually, according to the BBPA. Since 2018, the number of pubs in the UK has fallen by 20%, down from 600,000 to 48,350 as of last year.

This has had a knock-on effect on beer sales. While overall beer sales rose by 0.7% in 2017, sales in pubs and bars fell by 2.4%, their highest margin since 2013; the equivalent of Brits drinking 88 million fewer pints than in 2016.

And it’s a particularly sore point for makers of cask beer. The report from Cask Marque points out that demographics that would be more inclined to opt for a flatter pint are visiting the pub less often than others. The body’s OnePulse survey found that, while nearly two thirds of pub-goers between 35 and 44 are likely to order cask beer, only a quarter of them go to the pub as often as once a fortnight.

When people do visit the pub, the report said, its usually either for a meal with family or friends (57%), for a birthday party (29%).

The solution

Both CAMRA and the BBPA continue to lobby the government to alleviate tax pressures on pubs, but consumers still need to be brought back, preferably for a cask ale.

The report suggested adding cask beer to serving suggestions with meals, and promoting festivals dedicated to the traditional serve, a sentiment echoed by Kris Gumbrell.

“Look at what’s happened in craft” he said. Craft kegged beer, by contrast, has witnessed a worldwide boom supported by start-up style brewery businesses which actively engage with their customers on social media and collaborate with UK pubs and other brewers, raising their awareness of their brands in the process.

“The industry has been doing a pretty poor job of brewing, marketing, wholesaling, management, and retailing cask beer,” he said.

This, he added, is in spite of support from the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA)

“We give it such reverence, but we treat it badly, sell it begrudgingly, and customers expect it to be the cheapest beer on the bar.”

He added that crucial to this is hiring educated and informed staff, who customers trust to help them make a good decision at the bar. Adding food pairing suggestions, and offering customers masterclasses devotes solely to craft beer — things which Gumbrell practices on his sites — are small changes that could make a big difference in the long-run.

2. Staff aren’t serving it well enough

The overwhelming majority of respondents to the OnePlus survey said they prefer to drink beer at a pub in the summer, when they can cool off in a beer garden.

But one of the key issues is temperature, according to Paul Nunny, ad the report notes how consumer tastes have changed.

Brewers recommend serving cask beer at 11-13C, he said, but when Cask Marque inspected pubs this summer, 25% were selling beer at a higher temperature. According to the report, 70% of consumers want cask to be served cooler (6-10*C) but 70% of pubs are serving it warmer than recommended

“This adds little refreshment value and almost encourages consumers to drink other products in the summer and return to the category in winter months.”

But with pub visits already falling, summer is now a more crucial time than ever for landlords.

As well as this, many pub landlords continue to sell cask beer after its past its best, meaning consumers have distorted view of what the beer should taste like. Cask beer should generally be kept on tap between three days and a week depending on the beerResearch carried out by Vianet, who monitored the flow of beer through UK pubs, found that the majority of pubs sell less than 72 or 88 pints per tap per week, so many are being served beyond their recommended window.

And even before they reach the taps, more than a quarter of pub landlords aren’t letting their casks settle for long enough before they’re served, all leading to hit-and-miss pints.

The solution

Staff, Nunny said, should regularly check the temperature of the beer in their glass, “at least twice per week,” to ensure quality control. The industry report recommended that pubs keep their own beer thermometers on-hand to make this easier.

This not only helps staff to maintain a stable temperature, but also means they can trial serving beers at different temperatures to see if consumers really do want a cooler beer.

“That is why Cask Marque is trialling a bar staff training programme,” he said.

3. Not suitable for millennials

Cask drinkers, to be blunt, aren’t cool, according to not only the report, but also some independent research pub group Brewhouse & Kitchen carried out at its own sites in the run-up to the conference. There are now 2,500 breweries in Britain, between them producing over 10,000 different cask beers a year.

But two-thirds of 18- to 24-year-olds surveyed by haven’t tried a single cask beer.

“Cask ale is perceived to be a drink enjoyed mainly by old men,” the report said, meaning it “lacks aspirational intrigue and appears a little stuck in the past.”

“It doesn’t make people look good if they order it. That needs to change.”

There are a few reasons for this. First, drinkers tastes have changed over the years (while bitter ales are in decline, golden cask beers are still performing well in terms of both sales and volume).

On top of this, the traditional world of cask ale can still feel exclusionary for half of the pub-going community. Gumbrell said that women should “play a much bigger role in cask” if the category is going to grow, but many breweries are still releasing beers with labels and pump clips which play on sexist humour. “This needs to stop,” Gumbrell said.

The solution

However Pete Brown, author and Chairman of the Guild of British Beer Writers, believes it shouldn’t be difficult to convert keg drinkers, especially those who are already fans of craft beer.

In a blog post from his own website written in April, Brown said craft keg drinkers are “a soft target for cask to convert.”

“They’re half way there already.”

He also cites a word association study funded by Wiltshire-based Box Steam Brewing, which identified a number of similarities between the descriptions drinkers attribute to both cask and keg-conditioned craft beer (“handmade, “diverse”, and “local” to name a few).

Speaking at the report launch on Thursday, Gumbrell also urged brewers to “collaborate with young upstarts”; breweries such as Yeastie Boys based in Wellington, New Zealand, for example, on new brews with hop-focused flavour profiles more appealing to millennials to show that the category can suit young drinkers as well as older locals.

But it looks like change is already in the air. After axing cask from its production at the start of 2017 Cloudwater, a Manchester-based brewery with a cult following in the UK, announced on 2 October that it would start brewing a small batch of cask-conditioned beers over Autumn and Winter.

“Cask beer is an important part of our cultural and brewing heritage, and we are excited to once again make a direct contribution.”