Votes cast for Best of British

Enthusiastic ale-lovers recently had the chance to elect their favourite beer. Noli Dinkovski reports on the competition

Isn't it refreshing to have a vote where people can actually elect their favourite for a change?" That was the view of Cask Marque director Paul Nunny, speaking about the Best of British Beer Awards at its winners' lunch last month.

And elect people did. Running for four weeks in March, the competition was an

opportunity for thousands of regular ale-drinkers and newcomers alike to vote for the cask ales they loved the most.

Created by Cask Marque and The Daily

Telegraph, and supported by the Morning

Advertiser, the Best of British Beer Awards

recognised winning ales from 10 regions of the UK - from St Austell Tribute in the south-west, to Scotland's favourite, Deuchars IPA.

The success of the competition, however, can be attributed largely to the enthusiasm with which the 2,000-plus participating Cask Marque pubs took to collecting the votes.

Licensees all over the country were instrumental in making the awards a hot topic of conversation in many a pub.

We talked to four of the top vote-collecting pubs to find out what they thought of the

competition.

awards vital statistics

l Well over half of the 3,700 Cask Marque pubs signed up as polling stations, taking thousands of votes from real-ale enthusiasts

l Nine million of the £1-off vouchers printed in The Daily Telegraph were used

l 88% of the licensees surveyed after the awards said they would participate next year

l 4,000 consumers used the text-messaging service to find their nearest polling station

l A further 300 registered an interest in

the "winning beers case offer" without any real prompting

l Wadworth 6X and London Pride are to be marketed in supermarkets as winners of an award

l Marston's and Greene King have started referencing their wins in their recent

brand advertising.

Kevin Cockburn, Tyneside Tavern, East Lothian

"The awards were really worthwhile and a great way to introduce cask ale to customers who have never tried it before. A number of people new to ale, including tourists from as far as the US, took part

in the voting.

"We have five real ales on offer in our

pub so we have a lot of cask-ale drinkers.

All our staff were involved in promoting them during the four-week period.

"We had good fun pushing it to the customers and getting them to fill in the beer mats. We are big on beer mats here anyway, so to have them double as voting cards worked well for us.

"The point-of-sale material is a good idea and the more of it you have, the better.

All in all, it was well done, so we will definitely participate again next year."

Sue Thomas, White Bear, Masham, Yorkshire

"We were incredibly enthusiastic about the awards, just like we are incredibly enthusiastic about everything we do.

Being a Theakston's pub we naturally have

a wide range of Theakston's ales, and we were pleased to see that they did so well

in the north-east.

"I'd say that about three-quarters of the people who come to our pub are cask-ale drinkers. We are next to the Theakston's

and Black Sheep breweries so a great deal of our customers are knowledgeable about their real ale.

"We had great fun with it and look forward to doing it again next year. People actually like taking part in these sorts of things - they don't just feel like they've bought a pint of beer, they feel they've bought the opportunity to make a statement."

Charles Leaver, Chequers, Laddingford, Kent

"All of Cask Marque's previous national campaigns seem to have centred around the trade press, which was good, but beyond the reach of the general public.

"I felt that the scheme needed to move

in a different direction, so I couldn't really say no when The Daily Telegraph and the

MA approached me to participate in the awards.

"It was something I wantedto see happen for a long time, so I became quite pro-active in my pub, which is only a little village pub, in getting my customers to fill the forms in.

"I'll certainly run it again next year, with hopefully the same result. There's no point in doing something if you don't put the effort in. The days of pubs just opening their doors and expecting people just to walk

in are over."

Mike Field, West Riding Licensed Refreshment Rooms, Dewsbury

"The awards were a good way to get

everybody interested in ale, and the coverage in The Daily Telegraph was important as well. All too often stories about real ale are tucked away in specialist publications, but here we were with some full-page items about it in the national press.

"Why did we get so many votes? Well, we did stick it under people's noses by having a large voting box placed on the bar. I think the beer mats were very effective as well.

"We are quite pro-active when it comes to real ale anyway, so our customers were bound to be interested. Ale adds up to around half of our overall sales and we are constantly trying to convert our existing customers, whether they are youngsters, females or regular lager drinkers."