Bottled Beer: The case for specialities

You only have to look at the growth of boutique music festivals, locally sourced food and even organic clothing to see that consumer demand for quality, provenance and individuality is increasing. This be seen clearly in the beer market, where drinkers appear to be ditching big standard lagers for specialist premiums.

In fact, according to Nielsen, sales of standard lager fell in the on-trade by eight per cent from May 2007 to May 2008, but sales of world lager grew by seven per cent.

However, is the pub trade cashing in on this as much as it could?

Des Mulcahy, director of Copper Tun, a company which runs beer-related events, believes not.

Bottled beer gives pubs more scope to stock an adventurous range of beers than they have with draught, which is more perishable. But Mulcahy says further sales growth is being stunted by a lack of consumer awareness of such beers.

"Our focus groups have shown that only two in 10 people know the ingredients of beer. That's quite shocking," says Mulcahy. "The American microbrewery market has shown us the potential popularity of craft beer. I guess we're hoping that the Brits will take on what the Americans have, but people need to know about it in the first place."

Copper Tun is behind Beer Exposed, a new consumer event that aims to entertain and educate people about the many different types of specialist beers available.

"We are not trying to reach beer geeks, we're trying to reach your average city-dweller," Mulcahy explains. "We want to show that there is more than just your standard four per cent lager. There's an incredible diversity of beers that people just don't appreciate are there. We want them to make a more informed choice when they go to a pub. It's an awakening and there is huge potential for growth. We think beer should be or could be treated as wine has been, especially in gastronomic circles."

Increasing demand for specialist beers by educating consumers is one thing, but catering for that demand in the on-trade is quite another. Michael Cook, purchasing director of imported beer for Pierhead Purchasing, a specialist beer supplier, believes few pubs are making the most of the demand for specialist beers, because there is a lack of awareness of them among staff.

"I think there is widespread ignorance of the variety of beers in the trade," he says. "Staff need to be making recommendations to people, especially when they are ordering food, as to what beer would go with it. They should know the types of beers, their provenance, what a malt beer is, what a wheat beer is. They shouldn't just be taking orders, they should be sales people. The message is getting through, but it's slow work."

According to Cook, even though specialist beers tend to be more expensive, now is a good time for bars to get switched on about them. "In this economic climate, people are going out less," he says. "But the few times they do now go out, they will want to spend their money wisely and tend to demand better quality. Specialist beers have that extra quality."

Help is at hand

• Beer Exposed, which will take place at London's Business Design Centre on September 25-27, will include tasting sessions, demonstrations of food and beer matching and talks about beer history. There will be sections of the event dedicated to beer ingredients, beers for women, extreme beers and British craft brewing.

• Pierhead Purchasing is developing a training programme which will be offered free of charge to pubs that stock Pierhead products. The half-day sessions, which will launch in spring 2009, will cover what the different types of beer are, what their qualities are, where they originated from, what food they will go with and how they should be recommended.