Innovative ideas for draught on ice for now?

If Victor Frankenstein had been passionate about draught beer and cider, rather than re-animating human flesh, his laboratory might have looked something like the room IMI Cornelius uses to demonstrate its products to drinks suppliers and retailers.

The display centre at drinks dispense company Cornelius' Warwickshire headquarters has many similarities to the infamous mad scientist's hangout. Gadgets straight out of science fiction bleep and whizz, unusual fluids flow through pipes, top-secret unfinished works are concealed from prying eyes by tarps thrown over them.

At the centre of it all, the equivalent of the monster on the slab, is the TwinIce cider dispense system that has raised Cornelius' profile of late.

The machine freezes and dispenses a layer of cider (not water) to top the draught beverage and was developed for use by cider producers Westons and Thatchers. It has also been sold direct to pubs wishing to use it as a general draught system for other cider brands. Over 500 of the units are being used by the pub trade.

The display room's other pride and joy is UltraFlow, a dispense system designed to pour pints in a super-fast six seconds for enormous venues like Wembley and the O2 Arena, and FastPour, a kind of baby brother that can pour pints in pubs in nine seconds. Around 1,000 FastPour taps are currently in use nationwide.

So far, so good for a company assuming increasing importance for the pub market. Cornelius' communications director Ian Bidmead puts the products' popularity down to the fact that, with increased competition from the off-trade, innovative dispense offers a valuable point of difference.

Too radical?​

However, like Frankenstein's madcap schemes, some of Cornelius' ideas may be too radical, too boat-rocking for what Bidmead claims is still a conservative on-trade.

The company's list of products, for example, includes a device that allows barstaff to cut together varying volumes of beers of different ABVs to offer customers their choice of alcoholic strength. So, they could choose standard Stella Artois cut with the four per cent Artois to give them a drink at the exact ABV they require, within reason. These types of system have predictably met with resistance from brand owners and pub companies.

Bidmead explains the appeal of the systems that have taken off: "They're the sort of thing that can add value, and help the retailer to a level where they're not having to compete with the off-trade on price. Our key focus is on changing on-trade products to things that can't be replicated at home."

He compares the pub trade right now to cinemas and football grounds in years gone by. These were types of entertainment facing increasing competition from the lure of new domestic technology and economic conditions, and which "have successfully completely re-invented their core product".

That, after all, is largely the reason over-ice cider has been so successful in pubs. It's easy enough to make ice cubes at home, but there's something about the theatre of the serve and the branded glassware at the bar that is alluring. Now draught iced cider has made the on-trade-exclusive nature of the category even more the case.

Barrier​

However, this high technology represents extra cost over standard draught systems - installation of a single FastPour tap costs over £120, for example. This extra pay-out needs to come from somewhere.

And it is here where the barrier lies. Do drinks producers value the on-trade highly enough to fund the development and installation of such dispense systems? Have cash-strapped licensees and managed estates the will to invest in something more expensive on the basis that it may set them apart from the off-trade and help them claw back some of that missing cash in the long-term ?

A few years ago, Coors developed a product with Cornelius that gave its lager an iced head in the same way TwinIce does for cider (see box, below). Its numbers in the trade have steadily dwindled since the launch. Coors lost enthusiasm for a product it was making less margin on than its standard stock, and retailers were unwilling to pay for the funding of something that did not prove as popular as cider.

"The drinks industry has not yet decided on the best commercial model for this," says Bidmead. "It can still be quite a battle over which side is going to take the hit and lose margin. However, that relationship is starting to happen.

"It's about recognising we all have a role to play. The quality of draught products can go up a level, but the solution is not what we or the brand owners are doing in isolation - it's a partnership."

Seismic shift​

For this mindset to truly take hold would involve a pretty seismic shift, and you can see why some brand owners would object to adventurous dispense technology. Not only may they perceive risks with the equipment itself, but in many cases their whole marketing is based on the tradition of the drink's pour - Guinness' strapline would not sound the same if Diageo had to base it on the perfect pint being poured in six seconds, rather than 119.

While Dr Frankenstein sought to adjust his contemporary society's mindset in a rather more macabre way than this, Cornelius' creation on the slab has started to not only excite debate but to show real signs of life, just like his monster.