The Drinks Editor says...

I'm not sure the beer and pub fraternity has cottoned on to how big a story the merger of Charles Wells and Young's brewing concerns actually is. Here we have two major players in the cask ale world joining together to form the third biggest brewer in the cask market, behind Wolverhampton & Dudley and Greene King. More cask beers and more premium lagers will be available to more drinkers. It is the biggest thing to happen to the domestic brewing market since the entry of Coors and Interbrew into the UK market five to six years ago.

The big winner in all of this will be the consumer. Young's pubs will now have access to the very impressive range of brands that Charles Wells has accumulated over the years - both brewed under licence, such as Red Stripe and Kirin, and imported, like Corona Extra.

For Charles Wells, being able to add a new range of cask beers to its business will do its position as a cask brewer no end of good. In previous years Charles Wells has really trumpeted its position as one of the keepers of the flame of cask ale. But in fact all the trade really hears about is Bombardier.

Charles Wells certainly does do other beers, such as Eagle IPA, but the company has not done a fantastic job of shouting about them. Now it has been given a range of beers with a strong built-in audience.

It is a big responsibility for the brewers in Bedford. Of all the brewing deals done recently, such as those involving Gales and Jennings, arguably this will have the most impact. After all,Young's is as close to iconic as cask ale has got in the past 30 years.

But what is most interesting is the thought of Paul Wells and Stephen Goodyear, the respective managing directors of the two companies, sitting down together, sharing information and ideas, together forming a grand plan for their cask ales.

Slowly but surely we are seeing a growing thirst among brewers to work together. The work of the Beer Academy and more recently the British Beer & Pub Association's Beautiful Beer campaign have shown the industry at its best - willing to unite and invest behind a common cause (although much more needs to be done).

Maybe we will see this through an imminent announcement by the country's six biggest cask ale brewers of a new initiative to boost the image and profile of cask ale.

There has been much speculation, much of it misplaced and unhelpful, about what exactly this link-up will entail. But there is no doubt this will be one of the biggest things to happen to cask ale in some time. Big companies and major competitors, sitting down together to share information and present a united front to consumer and trade alike.

We should wait until all the facts are in before we take a definitive stance but my gut feeling is that this is a venture that should be heartily applauded. Too often it takes the efforts of a third party, like a trade association, to put together a campaign to try and promote interests of a concern in the pub trade. Here the main parties are taking the bull by the horns and getting together to develop the positives of the cask beer category.

So with this initiative and the formation of Wells & Young's perhaps we will see cask being more cohesive as a category and really getting out into the public domain and fighting its corner. Because that is what it really needs to do in today's tough retail environment.