MyShout

There are just too many cask-ale organisations achieving too little says

David Bremner

I remember from my economics degree that a market would be in equilibrium when supply equals demand, whether relating to mortgages, cars or health clubs. However with cask beer there seem to be some imperfections.

Many cask producers are too small to advertise or employ a sales force and have relied on trade bodies to deliver their message.

A forecast of a 5% decline in cask-ale sales for the next five years should not come as a huge surprise. Yet who is there to start the fight-back?

With a dozen on-trade bodies purporting to help, it is difficult to determine where they fit in. They include Beautiful Beer, Cask Marque, IFBB, SIBA, Camra,

Beer Naturally and the Beer Academy.

Some are owned by brewers, some by groups of brewers and some by industry organisations and interested parties, all "doing their bit" to promote cask ale, but with differing agendas.

Undoubtedly everyone's intentions are honourable, but demand for so many organisations is not apparent, so why the supply? Possibly we, the cask producers, should take the blame as we've all supported initiatives in an uncoordinated way.

Via the think tank "Why Handpull" we're able to voice our frustrations and it will be interesting to see how the "suppliers" react and whether the brewers can work together for the common good. In the true nature of supply and demand, these bodies should be "supplying" us with what we need and we should be clearly "demanding" from them.

An example of how this mismatch of supply and demand causes problems is the development of Cyclops, the new format for explaining cask beer in a way consumers will understand. There are 25 regional and microbrewers now using it.

So why has this initiative been so widely welcomed and adopted so quickly? The answer is simple; Cyclops is not attached to any particular company or association and is free and non-political.

There are breweries that don't support Cask Marque and pub companies that don't support the Beer Academy but as Camra has a monopoly on representing the consumer, we were able work with them.

There is hope that with innovation in brands improving, the SIBA Direct Delivery Scheme will have a great future in delivering local beers and there are great training courses on every element of the perfect serve.

In an ideal world there would be one body to champion and kick-start a revival. Our colleagues in the wines and spirits arena are represented by the Wine & Spirt Education Trust, with one body, one set of awards, one set of exams and bought into by wine producers and the overseas export agencies.

One of the cask-ale champions needs to start

co-ordinating efforts and this will bring us closer to demand equalling supply. We all have the same ambition for cask ale and need to collectively demand what we want from the trade organisations to ensure the future.

Next stop: how to make the pubs demand this support.