Dominant ales

Size matters ­ or so it would seem in the ale market. The national brewers have moved out of ale in recent years, making way for a strong charge from regionals. Nigel Huddleston examines the market

There are lies, damned lies, statistics and on-trade sales figures for ale. It's not that brewers and pubs are fibbers or tweakers, it's just that with such a disparate world of suppliers and retailers, figures are notoriously hard to come by. So, we won't quote any ­ everyone finds figures boring anyway, don't they?

Suffice to say that the real-ale camp, headed by the regional brewers, suggest that cask is not doing all that badly. While they don't always hold their hands up to it, the majority of the big players have their focus on lagers, as what were once British major brewers have fallen into the hands of overseas-based multinationals.

Ken Brooker, boss of the Harviestoun Brewery in Clackmannanshire, says: "It's changing all the time. Certainly in Scotland a lot of pubs in the mid-1990s put in two or three extra handpumps because they thought they weren't much of a pub if they didn't. But ultimately there weren't enough cask beer drinkers around and a lot have now fallen away. And I think a lot of the smaller brewers have benefited because the big boys have backed off."

Shepherd Neame marketing manager Charlie Holland says: "There's still a lot of debate about the true figures of what's going on in the cask-ale market and the legitimacy of the figures that are floating around. But what is clear is that a lot of the bigger regionals are having big success and the market for a lot of cask ales is in pretty good shape. But that's been distorted by some of the national brands that have been moving out of cask in recent years."

Although the brand remains, Boddingtons' Strangeways brewery in Manchester has closed under Interbrew stewardship and it has long since ceased to be a staple of ad breaks and the back pages of the Sunday supplements.

Carlsberg UK has taken over complete control of what used to be Carlsberg-Tetley, with what was once the top draught bitter brand taking a back seat to the Danish flagship.

And the transformation of Bass Brewers into Coors Brewers has seen a rapid retreat from news around Worthington, the positioning of the company as a one-shop lager supplier and the transfer of the Bass brand to Interbrew. Coors acknowledges its fame in lager but insists that it is "proud of, and committed to, our portfolio of ale brands".

Interbrew too insists that it's right behind Draught Bass and Boddingtons. On-trade sales director Colin Pedrick says: "There has been very little innovation in ale and there is a need for brewers to do more of this in the future, and we certainly have plans to address this."

It's a similar picture at Carlsberg, which says that sponsorship, rather than innovation, confirms its commitment to the category.

Is it mere coincidence that Scottish Courage remains the only British-owned major, and has leapt to top spot in the ale charts with its £25m-worth of support for John Smith's Extra Smooth?

John Roberts, marketing director for Fuller's, is in no doubt that ale has suffered because of the long-term attitude of the majors to the category.

Roberts explains: "Each year the market gets tougher and tougher. We saw a very steep decline a few years ago driven by the big national brewers moving out of ale and into global lager brands."

The positive aspect of the vacuum created by the nationals is that second-stream bigger regionals have been able to drive their own brands up the ale-sales league. Greene King, 20 years ago very much an East Anglian regional, now regards itself as a national player. While it may still lack presence in parts of northern England, its pub and ale brand acquisitions have given it a significant chunk of the market across southern England and the Midlands.

Another factor that has allowed both large and small regional brewers to broaden their geographical scope has been the beer-buying approaches of the big supermarket chains. It used to be that beer brands were built in the regional on-trade before being rolled out nationally. Only once that distribution base had been built was there likely to be any interest from the off-trade.

But with the supermarkets falling over themselves to give their beer ranges USPs, smaller British ale brands are finding their way on to supermarket shelves first and building on-trade distribution on the back of the interest this generates among consumers. Although many smaller local brewers do achieve some local listings with supermarkets, it's a situation that favours the bigger regionals because they tend to have the brewing and bottling capacity to cope with big orders and, therefore, get the national listings.

For many years it was assumed that changing consumer tastes were the problem for ale, but in recent years there seems to have been an industry realisation that the quality of product they were delivering played a significant part.

Roberts adds: "There are basically two types of ale brewers: those who will sell at almost any price but won't make much money and others who are building brands by investing in product quality and putting money into training and education, as well as marketing support."

Shepherd Neame also says having a strong approach to in-outlet quality is important to success. Holland says: "Generally, conditions in the market are difficult, but we're finding in our own pub estate that a lot of the quality initiatives are delivering good results. Licensees are embracing it; there's a recognition that serving ales in the correct way is a way of differentiating yourself from the competition."

Pubcos say they are behind cask ale as much as anyone. Punch Taverns has just produced Cask Connection, a brochure featuring a range of offers on ale brands and information on storing and presenting cask ale.

Punch marketing manager Stephen Martin says it wants to get away from ale being seen as an older person's drink. He adds: "There are signs that younger drinkers of both sexes are discovering the taste and variety of cask ales and we want to encourage this growing market. Cask ale has historically been the staple of British pub culture and we're trying to keep it alive."

Badger Brewery is another regional brewer claiming success in the face of a declining market, with a collective sales increase of 24% for its brands last year. Beer brands marketing manager Rick Payne says: "One reason the regional brewers are doing so well is because of the emphasis they're placing on quality. Some 95% of our pubs are Cask Marque accredited and we invite all our licensees to something called the Badger Experience.

"I hesitate to call it training because that implies whiteboards and pots of coffee and all that, but they actually come down to the brewery for two days and all they get to drink is beer and they get involved in learning about how it's made.

"This is all important stuff because if you get a new consumer to try a pint and it's a bad pint, they'll just go back to lager. That's why you need to make sure every pint is good quality, and it's only in recent times that the industry's started to address that."