12 months of growth for Cask Ale

29th March 2010, 9:32am

Cask Ale has experienced a full 12 months of growth last year for the first time since 1982, according to new figures published today at the start of National Cask Ale Week, a celebration of cask in 10,000 pubs nationwide.

Although growth in 2009 was 0.04%, it compares to the 5% fall in on-trade beer sales last year. Among smaller brewers, total cask volumes are up by over 1% and turnover by an average of 16%.

The cask category started to decline in the early 1980's, losing drinkers and market share to lagers and keg bitters until the early 2000's.  Since then, resurgent consumer demand, the expansion of the small, craft brewing sector and renewed investment from many regional brewers, have rescued cask ale from near-oblivion. Cask is now the only sector of the UK beer market in growth.     

Pete Brown, author of The Cask Report, said: "Cask's reinvention is impressive by any measure. In 2008, a million and a half more people drank cask than in the previous year. And this is against a trend of falling demand for beer and for alcohol overall.

"It isn't just socially acceptable to drink cask beer now, it's positively cool.  Increasingly, cask is stocked by bars and pubs attracting a younger crowd, not just back street 'boozers'. Even Glastonbury, a magnet for hip under-25's, sells cask on all its bars.   It's hard to believe that during the 1980s/90s, the same drink was viewed with a mixture of scorn and suspicion by anyone under-40, female, or slightly fashion-conscious."

National Cask Ale Week is running from 29th March to 5th April.

Related Articles:

• 27 Sep 2010 - Cask ale outperforms beer market, finds report
• 14 May 2010 - Cask Ale Week drives pub sales
• 24 Mar 2010 - Fuller's reveals 'exclusive' Cask Ale Week plans

Click here to submit a comment!

Have your say!

To comment on this article, simply enter your name and email and send us your views. Please note that your comment will appear publicly below this article once it has been processed. For enquiries please email info@eatoutmagazine.co.uk.