Are these the saviours of ale?

As sales of cask beer continue to fall more brewers, most recently Ridley's, have decided to call it a day. But what does the future really hold? With the latest research suggesting that the market is bottoming out, there are many in the industry including those pictured above, who are seeing sales grow and believe that the category can survive

If there was any true appreciation of the glories of Britain's food and drink heritage, then our leaders would not be planning to serve English still and sparkling wines to Jacques Chirac alongside British beef and Scottish salmon at banquets during the UK's presidency of the European Union, but instead the finest cask ales, porters and stouts.

A crisp, bright, malty bitter straight from the barrel to accompany his sirloin ought to make the French president realise Burgundy and Bordeaux are far from the last words on drink with food.

A humming strong dark cask stout with the cheese course would open Monsieur Chirac's eyes to pleasures unknown in Paris or Marseilles.

Sadly, the depths of delight in cask ale are seemingly less and less valued, even in its homeland. Sales of cask beers are still dropping, older cask-ale drinkers are dying and apparently not being replaced by younger drinkers discovering the pleasures of a hand-pulled pint, and the nation's old-established regional family brewers, now the backbone of the cask-beer world, are deciding the returns in a declining market are not worth them carrying on Ridley's of Essex is just the latest example.

Next year the four founder members of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) will be meeting in Kruger's Bar on the Dingle peninsula in Ireland. It's notable for being the westernmost pub in Europe and also the place where, back in 1971, those four friends decided to start an organisation dedicated to saving British cask ale from the threat, as they saw it, of bland, over-fizzy, over-sweet keg bitter, at the time pushing handpumped beer off bartops across the UK.

Thirty-five years on, will they look back with pride at the success of a campaign now racing towards 80,000 members, with its Good Beer Guide in the bestseller charts every year and a highlypopular national beer festival featuring ales from hundreds of different brewers every August? Or will they be regretting that they concentrated on attacking keg bitter when it was lager that was the biggest threat, luring new drinkers away from traditional British beer styles? Will they look at the number of established regional brewers in operation when Camra started more than 90 and the number still in existence today, fewer than 40, and decide that with all its efforts, the Campaign has been, like King Canute, unable to stop the tide, in this case of big-brand, mass-market beers?

All is not yet doom and gloom around the tomb of cask-conditioned beer, however. Graham Page, a consultant at the market research company AC Nielsen, says cask sales are still down, year-on-year, but the decline has slowed over the past five years and is possibly bottoming out: 'By 2005-6 and 2006-7 we'll see if growth is possible.

Anecdotal evidence from 2003-4 partly through Nielsen's own auditing research, observation and the efforts of Cask Marque across nearly 4,000 accredited outlets is that cask-ale distribution in pubs is increasing again, as more regional and micro brewers get access to pub chains, with more brands on sale in bars, Page says.

Market penetration figures from AC Nielsen's LTDC Surveys in recent years show cask ale at just under 40% distribution in the on-trade overall. National pub chains stand at around 60% penetration for cask beer, while regional brewers' pub estates are well over 80% penetration. 'Perhaps that's not surprising, as regional brewers are predominantly cask-ale producers selling in cask-ale pubs, says Page. It is among the regionals, too, that growth is being seen, with the decline in sales largely affecting what one regional operator calls the 'legacy brands: the big-name cask ales produced by the national brewers. Some regional brewers and microbrewers are seeing their cask ales grow by 20% or more, Page says, while SIBA, which represents two-thirds of the country's 450-plus smaller independent brewers, says its members' sales are growing at 12% or more.

The growing availability of different brewers' cask beers in more pubs means the opportunity is there for traditional ale to grow again as a category, Page believes, rather than be limited to individual growth brands. It was the sudden availability of extra choice at the time the guest beer rules were introduced in the early 1990s that powered the last surge in ale sales, the only time lager as a percentage of total beer volumes went into retreat in the past 45 years.

Page, who wrote Nielsen's latest UK Cask Ale Market Report, says working out the true size of the cask-ale market today is difficult because of the way different organisations, from the British Beer and Pubs Association (BBPA) to SIBA, compile their figures. But Nielsen's best estimate is that, at the end of 2004, cask ale was 30% of the total ale market, and around 7.8% of the total beer market, not the 6.6% given by the BBPA, while sales volume trends saw a fall of around 4% over the year, not the 6% fall the BBPA reports.

Page suggests there are core targets cask ale has to hit in order to grow. The first is to find more new drinkers, since selling more beer to existing cask-ale drinkers is not a realistic option. Younger drinkers can be attracted by new product development, such as the new generation of pale, hoppy 'summer ales, served cooler than traditional bitter, or cask lager, currently being pioneered by Cain's of Liverpool. There are also, Page says, 'loads of 'Grey Panthers' out there, weaned on cask ale, who turned to lager but could be brought back into the fraternity of traditional beer drinkers. This may be over-optimistic: it is often forgotten that the generation that produced the Camra pioneers is the same one that, as it grew old enough to drink, sent lager sales soaring in the late 1960s and right through the 1970s. If they weren't drinking cask ale then, it seems unlikely they would change now.

As part of the drive to attract new drinkers and, indeed, retain existing ones Page says, there needs to be a 'huge effort on presentation, temperature, and quality: without that, growth simply will not happen. In addition, retailers need to look at pricing. Why charge more for nitrokeg beers, he asks, if cask ale is meant to be better? Overall Page, who describes himself as 'a cask devotee and Camra member, believes that despite the continuing decline in sales, 'there are green shoots of opportunity in the cask-beer market, but mostly with regional and smaller brewers' brands.

His views are matched by Martin Curren at CGA Centro, a rival market research firm, which has not always agreed with Nielsen about the picture in the cask-ale market. CGA still puts cask-ale sales a little higher than Nielsen, at 2.8m to 3m barrels a year, against the 2.77m barrels Nielsen finds.

But Curren agrees that 'the regionals are very much the mainstay of cask ale today, with strong brands and good growth. He, too, believes that the sector is now 'at the bottom of the hockey stick in terms of its decline, and could start to see growth again in the next two or three years, particularly in terms of value, as drinkers trade up to more highly-priced products.

The most important angle for brewers and pub operators to realise, Curren says, is that the consumer does not think in the same terms as the industry of 'standard and 'premium beers but is predominately looking for taste and quality and is prepared to pay for it. Consumers are also increasingly interested in quality regional or local offerings, Curren says, which may be a clue to the decline of the national cask brands.

Cask ale still faces some significant threats, however, including the increased cost of licensing, which is likely to see some marginal cask-beer oriented pubs close and, perhaps more importantly, the smoking issue. 'A complet