Are we missing the best footfall driver?

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Beer focus: The MA's Ed Bedington urges operators to put cask back in the heart of business

As January makes way for February and the colder miserable months continue to bite, pubs will be eager to look for ways to drive punters over the threshold.

All manner of wild and whacky events will be planned, from Twister tournaments (I’ve never actually heard of a pub doing a Twister tournament, but reckon that could be a winner – you can have for free) through to the old favourites of pub quizzes and karaoke nights.

But are pubs overlooking a key driver that they should rightly be using as a principle lever to pull in the punters?

Authentic experience

When the lockdowns hit and people were denied a trip to their local, one of the key things people were missing out on was a proper pint of cask. People queued up to get takeaway pints, despite the fact they could buy cheaper beer in the supermarket.

They wanted that authentic cask beer experience, and when the pubs opened, they flocked back, and cask beer played a major role in that.

We launched The Cask Project last year to reconnect the sector with the importance of cask beer. It is a USP for pubs, yet, with honourable exceptions, we’ve failed to show it the respect and love it is due and as a category it faces significant decline.

Driving footfall

So why not leverage that USP to drive footfall in the quieter months. Let’s remind our customers that not only is cask beer a great product, it’s also one you can only get down the pub!

Let’s theme events around cask beer, food and beer pairing nights for example, or build it into the quiz – guess the beer round!

Let’s put cask back at the heart of our businesses and get people once again flocking to the pub for a product only we can do well.