Put cask in the spotlight!
This unmissable annual Cask Ale week provides the perfect chance to enthral your customers, showcase some amazing beers, and grow your sales and profits.
Why cask ale drinkers are so important…
Cask ale remains a key category for your bar, accounting for 45% of all ale serves.¹ Not only that, cask is unique to the on-trade, meaning that ale enthusiasts will be seeking out your venue for a great selection of cask. Cask ale is a lucrative category with 4.1 million consumers drinking it out of home.²
MORE PEOPLE
Cask Ale consumers are a lucrative consumer to attract into your venue. They typically visit during quieter times of the day and day of the week. In fact 60% of cask ale drinkers visit their local pub during the week (Monday to Thursday).³ Attracting cask drinkers should therefore help to keep you busy throughout the day and week.
MORE OFTEN
40% of cask ale drinkers visit the trade at least weekly.⁴ That’s 10% more than the average consumer.
SPENDING MORE
60% of cask ale drinkers are willing to upgrade their ale which means that offering a selection of premium cask choices will drive additional revenue.
Cask Ale Week is an annual celebration that gives pubs the golden opportunity to raise awareness of Britain’s national drink – cask ale– and grow sales of this unique and historic product. Taking place on 19-29 September, venues can organise events and activities to promote real ale and encourage customers to sample products.
Founded by Cask Marque, the independent award for pubs serving great quality cask ale, in the early noughties, Cask Ale Week is supported by trade organisations, brewers (including Greene King), pub groups and The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).
Why does Cask Ale Week present such an important opportunity? Well, cask ale is a cornerstone of the Great British Pub and when executed well it can drive footfall, frequency and spend. Cask ale drinkers, as we all know, are extremely valuable customers as they visit more often than regular customers and spend more when they are there. In fact, 40% of cask ale drinkers visit the pub at least weekly – 10% more than the average consumer, according to CGA BrandTrack.
BIG HITTERS
Where to start, then, when building a range that will help you make the most of Cask Ale Week? Too many choices and throughputs will be too low to achieve a high-quality serve, too few choices and your cask consumers won’t be satisfied with the variety. A great place to start solving this puzzle is with Greene King’s proven range of cask ale stars.
Our permanent range of nine amber ales and three golden and pale ales features some of the most popular cask ales in the country including favourites like Greene King IPA, Ruddles Best, Belhaven 80 Shilling, Abbot Ale, Deuchars and Old Speckled Hen.
These cask ales enjoy nationwide awareness and adding them to your offering for Cask Ale Week can help bring new drinkers into the category as well as providing tried-and-tested options for the many cask ale loyalists out there.
There’s a flavour profile to suit most tastes among the permanent range and several of the ales are available in smaller 4.5G Pins format, making it easier than ever for you to give them a try behind the bar with minimal risk of wastage.
FRESH CASK RELEASES
It’s common knowledge, however, that cask ale fans enjoy trying new beers, which is partly why Greene King has created its rolling Fresh Cask Releases range of limited-edition beers every year.
The 2024 Fresh Cask Releases features 13 limited-edition beers chosen by Greene King’s experienced and expert brewers who are passionate about creating the freshest, highest-quality, hand-crafted ale.
These ales are only available for a month or two at a time throughout the year and are tailored specifically to the time of year to help you appeal to both hardened cask ale fans and help bring new drinkers into cask.
Three Fresh Cask Release beers are available over the next couple of months. The barnstorming success story that is Bonkers Conkers returns for the month of September only and is sure to be a huge hit again this year. Bonkers Conkers is a complex autumn beer with fruit aromas and taste set against biscuity malt which adds body and warmth. Fragrant notes of blackcurrant, lemon and orange peel further enhance this outstanding beer.
Available throughout September and October is another limited edition, Watch Room golden ale, a juicy, tropical golden beer bursting with fruit flavours. It was inspired by Greene King’s very own brewery fire brigade, formed in 1888.
Last, but not least, Blood Hound will be available in October. This special Halloween stout is not only easy-drinking with delicious chocolate and blood orange characters it also taps in to the continued growth of stout so should prove popular with cask, and non cask drinkers alike.
TAKE FLIGHTS
Cask Ale Week presents a fantastic opportunity to lure more drinkers into the undeniable joys of cask ale – and Greene King has everything you need to do just that.
Only 37% of beer drinkers have tried cask ale, according to a recent YouGov poll for SIBA, so there’s a real opportunity to use Cask Ale Week to stoke people’s curiosity and get them tasting these enticing products, which have so much to offer in terms of different styles and flavour profiles.
A brilliant and proven way to bring more consumers into the category is by making use of our flight kits. These kits let you sell a flight of three one-third pint taster beers for the same price as a pint. When the customer has decided which beers they’d like to try, you can write the brand names on the cards provided and give them to customers, who can then scan a QR code on the card to access tasting notes.
Point of Sale material is available to help you sell flights, including pump clip topper and posters, to flag up the initiative to customers. Be sure to get your staff on board too, so that they can spread the word.
EXPAND YOUR RANGE WITH PINS
It’s now easier than ever to serve your customers a good selection of cask ale whilst minimising the risk of wastage, or a poor-quality offering. With 4.5G pins you only need to sell 12 pints a day to maintain quality, meaning that you can showcase an exciting line-up of fresh cask ale all week long.
WHEN TO USE PINS?
- To broaden your range of cask ale.
- To maintain quality during quieter times of the week.
- To offer cask for the first time, or reintroduce to your venue.
Pins are not always the best option for your pub – any brand that sells a full firkin every three days does not need to switch to pins. However, you may wish to broaden your range, or try new styles and pins are a great way of doing that. You may even find that mixing pins and firkins maximises availability and reduces wastage throughout the week.
RANGING FOR SUCCESS
Making sure that you have the right range is an important piece of the puzzle – too many choices and throughputs will be too low to achieve a high-quality serve, too few choices and your cask consumers won’t be satisfied with the variety.
STYLE
Almost 3 in every 4 pints of cask ale sold is Amber⁵, making it a must stock for any cask stockist.
However, golden and pale ales continue to steal share within cask. They also play an important role in broadening appeal, attracting a younger, more frequent consumer which is great for cask ale sales!
NATIONAL VS LOCAL
National brands have broad appeal with consumers whilst local choices are growing in popularity.
PERMANENT VS ROTATION
Be sure to stock choices customers can recognise and rely on, alongside new options that offer interest and excitement.
GET INVOLVED
To help maximise the benefits you get from Cask Ale Week, why not try…
Organising a quiz to celebrate cask ale. There’s a blank quiz template on www.caskaleweek.co.uk if you feel like putting your own questions together. You can also make life easier for yourself by requesting a copy of a ready-prepared Cask Ale Week Quiz, which can be done by emailing info@cask-marque.co.uk.
You can also link any events you have planned with the Cask Ale Week website to maximise publicity. Your event will then be listed on the Cask Ale Week website, putting it in front of a much larger audience. Just visit www.caskaleweek.co.uk to find out how.
A wealth of resources are also available to download on the same website including pre-prepared social media assets.
Why not build excitement for the week by doing an online countdown featuring daily posts in the run up to and during the event? These could feature images or video clips on your Facebook or Instagram pages showing different ales each day.
¹ [CGA by NIQ OPM MAT 15/06/2024]. ² [CGA BrandTrack]. ³ [CGA BrandTrack 2024]. ⁴ [CGA BrandTrack 2024]. ⁵ [CGA by NIQ OPM MAT P6 2024].
