Everards was one of the few regional family brewers to give up completely on cask ale in the early 1970s: the rise of the real-ale movement persuaded it to change its mind. Today the Leicester-based company, run by the great-great grandson of the founder, supplies its regular three cask beers to almost all its 161 tied houses and around 500 free-trade outlets as well.
Richard Everard, the company's chairman, says sales of Tiger Best Bitter are up 6.3% year-on-year against a 9% national decline in premium cask ales, while Beacon is up 4.3% against a 4% national decline in sales of standard ales.
Everard is not aiming too high for the global cask-ale scene: overall, he says, a flat market for cask-ale sales would be a reasonable goal in the next few years.
The absence of much investment by any of the big brewers in their cask-ale brands means everybody else has a harder task, but Everard still believes regional brewers and micro-brewers can make up for the large declines in the national brewers' cask sales. All the same, he is certain that 'if we do not work to improve the range, awareness and quality of cask beer then we can expect it to decline in line with the rest of the beer market over the next few years.
He does not see 18 to 24-year-olds as customers, 'unless there is significant investment by retail high-street brands and bigger producers to attract them. Instead, he believes growth will come from the 30-plus age group through self education. And as pubs become increasingly smoke-free, this will lure back alienated non-smokers, he forecasts. 'In the same way as consumers moved from white German wine to French red wine then to different grape types, I think we can all be optimistic that should this spread into other speciality products, ale should hold up well. It is hand-crafted from four ingredients and has such an array of differing styles that consumers should never be bored, Everard says. At the same time Camra aims to grow its membership by 33% over the next few years, 'and this will lead to an increase in consumers and volumes.
While Everard believes consumers will grow increasingly aware of the hand-crafted status of cask ale, he does not believe there is much chance of increasing prices 'unless there is significant investment in the brands and the theatre of serve, such as bespoke glassware.
For the future, with increasing consumer awareness of local products, Everard says he can see the regional brewers taking hold of their heartlands and thinks micro-brewers will continue to spring up. He also believes the national brands will shrink back to their homebase, too, leaving only their smooth variants to compete nationally.
Everards plans to invest 'quite heavily over the next five years, at about £20 a barrel on its advertising campaigns, but won't 'make the mistake of national cask brands by trying to be dominant nationally, Everard says. 'We are comfortable in restricting our growth potential to the Midlands and key cask-ale houses wider afield. I think that we can expect to grow by 5% a year over the next five years if plans work out.