What eventually brought me to cask in my early 20s was a jadedness with corporate, commercial beers. I was fed up with drinking the same drink, over and over again, every single time I went to the pub. A chance trip to Suffolk made Adnams my first introduction to cask – and I've never looked back.
Before that halcyon day at the coast, I'd never peered past the shiny lager taps, but in Southwold, one cannot escape Adnams - thank heavens - and the rest is history. I'd been faintly aware of those alien handpumps - but until that point, I didn't really know what cask was. Fast forward a few years, and my lager-drinking friends are raving about "this new craft beer". I remember a conversation with a reporter colleague in London, and being asked, "What's cask?"
Branding while not aping
And there's the rub: apathy and ignorance, issues that I believe continue to dog cask to this day. So, what can we do to re-energise the category in 2022. Firstly, I'd like to talk about branding. Aping other categories is futile and won't do justice to cask. What cask needs is bold, eye-catching branding that represents its classic yet vibrant credentials.
Some are doing it already, and doing it very well - Charles Wells, or Wells & Co since 2019, is a great example with its Brewpoint ales. The pump clips for its brilliantly named Origin, DNA and Hometown cask beers are striking and stand out from the crowd.
And once we get cask noticed, let's think about how we might showcase its depth and variety. For example, is it sensible to offer three or four amber beers, all very similar in style and strength, as I have often witnessed as a consumer. Cask provides the opportunity to offer a diverse choice for our pubs' diverse customer base. A lack of variety fuels the misconception that cask is a tired, single style of beer, or the old chestnut that there are just two types of beer: lager or bitter.
Varietal changing with the seasons
Those of us who love cask, know the truth: it offers a wide variety of flavours and styles for all palates, which brings me on to my next point - we must move with the seasons. The recent hot weather, and the UK's increasingly warmer climate, calls for greater attention to the cask offering, as the mercury rises and falls through the year. Perhaps we could drop one of those amber beers for a straw-coloured pale ale during those hot summer months, or offer a deep, coal black oatmeal stout during those dark winter nights. Let's impress patrons with the tantalising surprise of something different over the seasons.
Now for the controversial bit - the elephant in the room. Is it time for a review of the set in stone dispense temperature of 10-14°C. During a recent cycling trip out to a favourite village pub of mine - in blistering 28°C conditions - my Woodforde's Wherry seemed to lose its cellar coolness in an instant. Perhaps this could be thought about, at least for the hot summer months.
And finally, if we want to get cask noticed, why wait until the pub's annual beer festival - get a single cask on the bar in a cooling jacket and serve straight from the barrel. The power of this simple action cannot be underestimated. I know of an amateur cricket club that does it every summer. I witnessed its effectiveness - it makes cask a talking point, it got players and supporters, some who had never enjoyed cask, or didn't even know what it was, drinking, and talking about, cask ale.
As The Cask Project states, let's put cask front and centre - in all its glory - in pride of place on the bar.
