Pressing for some pump action

New kinds of draught serve are giving cider more of a presence on bar tops, discovers Nigel Huddleston

While the buzz has been about the over-ice bottled experience in recent years, draught cider has continued to grow — and much of the recent innovation activity has fo-cused on draught formats and replicating the ice-cold serve.

Strongbow still leads the market with around 60% share and was first in with Extra Cold, and others have now followed. Magners has been the most notable launch, opting for a straight extra cold product in a distribution deal with Coors Brewers.

Other producers have been technically more adventurous, with both Thatchers and Westons opting for a two-part draught serve — ice-cold cider for the first part and frozen cider when the tap's knocked the other way for the second part.

Bulmers Original is the only brand to attempt a draught serve over ice, which has implications for weights and measures controls unless the size of the serve can be regulated.S&NUK has attempted to get round this with over-sized glassware and a measured-pour font.

The message from all of them is that despite the rise of packaged cider, draught is still where it's at.

Gaymer Cider Company managing director John Mills says: "Draught is doing OK. Strongbow is doing well in rolling out Extra Cold, but we're gaining distribution at the other end of the market with the likes of Addlestone's, and Weston's Stowford Press as well as our own Blackthorn."

S&N marketing manager Stephen Mosey adds: "Draught cider has grown by at least 3% year on year over the past five years and, seeing as other draught categories like lager and ale have been in decline, there is a real opportunity."

It's one that hasn't passed Magners by, but without its own barrel distribution network and technical field staff, the tie-up with a major was key to its entry into the market. "If Magners is entering any segment of the market, we'll do it in a way that is powerful," says marketing director Maurice Breen. "We're establishing a premium draught cider market."

Breen says draught will help Magners avoid becoming typecast as the over-ice cider. "We learnt a few things since we've been in the UK," he says. "One was that we had to address the seasonality of the product. It's an important extra piece to the Magners offering.

"But extra cold will continue to be at the heart of the product. The affect of Magners in packaged cider was to make it all right to drink cider again and with the premium draught product; we're now a major player in quality mainstream pubs. It's probably the first real alternative to the market leader in draught cider."

Others think Magners may struggle to replicate the impact it had when the packaged version came in. Thatchers Cider managing director Martin Thatcher says: "The natural progression is to go into draught. Whether it will shake the market up as it did for bottles, I'm not too sure."

Thatchers Ice Gold and Westons Premium Cider With Cider Ice may lack the distribution clout to shake up the market either, but they do represent interesting attempts to redefine it.

"In the outlets that we've put it into, it does a really good job and has increased sales and footfall," says Thatcher. "Consumers like it. There are people who will go into those pubs just to drink the product."

Thatchers supplies the unit, but charges a rental on the equipment, otherwise it would cost pubs "thousands" to buy. "We know it can get a premium price, but we're encouraging pubs to set a price that's suitable for their outlet," says Thatcher.

Smaller producers argue that their products can achieve high rates of sale if only they can get on the bar top in the first place. It's a claim that's been put forward by Aspall, the Suffolk cider firm that has gone to the market by "piggy-backing" the distribution of cask-ale producers.

Aspall's director Barry Chevalier Guild says: "We're moving forward in a targeted way with companies like Adnams, Ringwood and Heavitree. We're now doing more in keg than bottle. There's still a belief in the trade that there's room for only one cider on the bar so, where we go in, we tend to replace the existing brand."

Where that happens, he claims, Aspall sales typically outsell the previous incumbent by four to one. "That's the sort of impact it can have," says Chevalier Guild. "It's very much about premium, destination pubs."

But for some the challenge of draught is just too big an ask.

Paul Burton, joint-managing director at St Helier-maker InterContinental Brands, says: "I never say never, but it's not something we either have the distribution network or the production expertise for. A product like Bulmers has the Strongbow factor and that's going from strength to strength, but it will be very difficult for others to get room on the bar top."