The crisis at Trenstar has highlighted once again one of the most intractable problems facing the pub and brewing industries.
Theft of stainless steel containers continues to rise - at a cost of 10s of millions of pounds a year. But there is a simple solution, at least for cask beer brewers, that has been gaining acceptance over the last few years - plastic containers.
CypherCo, the only company in the UK manufacturing plastic casks, estimates that 25 per cent of cask beer containers are now made of plastic, representing a dramatic trend that has literally been hidden underground in pub cellars.
Simon Wheaton, managing director of CypherCo, sets out a number of advantages which have been seized upon by microbrewers, though not larger producers, since the company started supplying more than four years ago:
- The cost of a plastic cask is less than a third the cost of a metal container
- A plastic firkin weighs 8kg less than the metal equivalent
- Colours on a plastic cask will not wear off, helping their repatriation to the brewer
- Plastic casks are worth next to nothing to anyone other than a brewer so are not worth stealing
- Plastic casks do not get dented, so volumes remain constant.
There are one or two disadvantages, too, however. Simon admits "the light weight of the plastic cask can cause an issue with automatic tilting stillages, but it is believed ballasting overcomes this problem".
Plastic is also less robust than steel. This means that it can only be used for cask beer, not high-pressure keg brews, so extra care is required in handling - though probably no more than the health and safety recommendations for any container.
Simon points out that, because of theft, the average life of a metal container is only five years in any case. There have also been reports that beer takes longer to condition in a plastic cask - but there seems little objective reason to believe the plastic might cause flavour contamination - the main worry among licensees.
Paul Simpson, managing director of Saltaire Brewery in Bradford, has used both plastic and steel casks since he started brewing 14 months ago, finding the lower cost and ease of handling of the lighter containers a persuasive argument in their favour.
"The only reason we haven't moved totally to plastic is that there are still some pubs out there that refuse to take them," he says.
"They believe there is a difference in the beer that comes out of a plastic cask. It's the same resistance as there was in the change from wooden to metal casks, but the number of pubs that take that view is declining.
"Plastic casks are not as strong, and there have been stories of them splitting, but pubs are getting used to handling them, and as the technology gets better that problem should disappear. There's no doubt in my mind that plastic is the future."