Campaign launched to champion cask beer

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Start date: the social media campaign launches next week (Monday 19 July), coinciding with lockdown measures in England being relaxed

A social media campaign has been created, coinciding with lockdown measures being relaxed in England, to help highlight the importance of cask beer.

Stand Up For Cask has been instigated by Cask Matters Group chair Paul Nunny who is calling for everyone in the trade to join the call.

Those wishing to participate are being encouraged to post daily on their social media channels, using the #StandUpForCask hashtag and logo, joining in with the Cask Matters Group who will be posting from Monday 19 July until Sunday 1 August.

Support needed

Nunny said: “The end of regulations should be the start of a comeback for our national treasure, cask ale.

“Cask has been all but lost during the past 18 months and it now needs a huge injection of support if a choice of beers on the bar isn’t going to become a thing of the past.”

The campaign said the importance of championing cask has never been greater with a report from the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group highlighting that pre-pandemic, cask was responsible for 72,500 jobs.

As a result of national lockdowns, 87m pints worth more than £300m were poured down the drain alongside jobs across the supply chain and the category’s contribution to the UK and local economies in revenues and taxes.

All hands to pump

Nunny added: “The thing with cask is that it’s brewed in Britain, using barley grown and malted here. It then goes to pubs to mature in the cellar, creating something fresh, natural and very importantly, sustainable.

“The pandemic has understandably seen an upsurge in home deliveries and click and collect but you can’t buy pub atmosphere in a supermarket, nor get it delivered to your door.

“Ditto for fresh cask beer. These are two of the things that can’t be packaged up and sold as a commodity, twoAl of the things that make pubs special.

“That’s why we are urging everyone with the slightest vested interest in cask to now be all hands to the pump and to Stand Up For Cask.

“Let’s together, reach those millions of potential cask drinkers and remind them why they should mosey down to the local to sip, savour and enjoy a pub-fresh beer.”