In the world of beer there is little better than a great pint of cask. But is it time to rethink the size of the tubs that we send this fine liquid in out to the trade? In his debut article for The Brewers Journal Alex Greig, founder of the award-winning Fuggles Beer Cafe, outlines some changes, and possible solutions to this quandary.
Something has always baffled me throughout my years in the trade. Why do we still focus on putting the majority of cask Ale into a 9 gallon tub?
As everyone knows in the hospitality industry, perishable products you prep little and often. Fresh is best and no one wants (or needs, particularly these days) waste. It’s the same mantra for cask too in terms of how we approach it in our on cellars at Fuggles – keep it fresh, keep stock at a decent level, sell it quickly (and if we miss a trick, get caught out by a downturn in trade and the beer isn’t on point, we bin it – but many won’t and don’t).
We all know one of cask Beers enemies is quality – which can often be exacerbated by slow turnover (or to make my original point clearer, too many pints in the container in the first place).
When you combine this with the changing trends with regard to drinking and factor in the growth in ‘craft’ keg beer over the last 10 years and the styles available it seems to me that if we want to further aid a revival in cask shouldn’t we look at how we package it to help the pubs dispensing it keep that quality high?
I can’t think of a reason why not (but I’m not the expert here, I’m not a brewer or packaging expert, just a chap at the front end selling the product – possibly your product).
Surely something a little smaller would make more sense – keeping turnover higher, product quality higher and wastage lower.
Alex Greig, Fuggles Beer Cafe
Keg beer adapted over the years and we went from rarely seeing anything other than 30 & 50L kegs to 20L kegs becoming the norm for higher strength or more niche styles in order to maintain freshness of product and ensure turnover in a reasonable amount of time (plus, kids these days always want something new).
With Cask having a shelf life of 2-3 days why do we insist on trying to shift 68 pints of it – particularly if it’s a slower moving style of beer (and yes, I’m very aware of the importance of getting the number of handpulls right in a venue, but even then it’s a fine balance between range and quality).
Surely something a little smaller would make more sense – keeping turnover higher, product quality higher and wastage lower (or in pubs that may not be as dialled into Cask quality as specialists are, less chance of the product spoiling).
I know there are breweries that happily fill pins, but they are few & far between – and are really best suited to higher strength and experimental cask beers (and again, like keg, should possibly become the norm for those styles!)
Whilst Cask is definitely having a bit of a return to form, helped by the ‘Craft Gen’ of brewers starting to fill up firkins, which in turn, attracts the very same drinkers that first got into indie beer during the original craft beer boom 10 or so years ago, it strikes me that as an industry now is a perfect time to rethink how we package it.
This will allow more creativity, range and most importantly, ensure the quality of arguably one of the finest products a brewery can produce – and yes, I am a cask drinker – in more venues helping to reduce that lottery, give customers more confidence in an unknown pub when picking a beer (how many times have you defaulted to Guinness because you know, chances are, it’ll be a safe bet!)
Of course I know there are some venues that can shift Kilders still – but these are few & far between these days and with changes in habits (drinking less, drinking a wider range of styles etc) this will surely only become rarer as time goes on (and those loyal drinkers, sadly, fade away – and I don’t see them being replaced with a younger generation, they approach their pub visits very differently).
Yes – there’s a place for Firkins, of course. But if I were starting up a brewery, I’d be commissioning my own fleet of 30L tubs, giving me more confidence that my product out in the wild will be in better condition, which can only be a good thing for a brand.
Easy to say when you’re not starting a brewery and just starting a debate in the Brewers Journal because the editor asked you to, but maybe it’s food for thought for our industry – whether you own your own fleet or whether you rent the casks out… Someone should commission a survey or something.
Alex Greig is the founder of the award-winning Fuggles Beer Cafe. Created in 2013 in Tunbridge Wells with the aim of specialising in the best British & European beers the team can find coupled with great wine & spirits.
