The cask is clearly half-full
It's good these days to visit a brewery and pick up enthusiasm for the future of the cask-beer sector.
The visit in question was to Wells &
Young's in Bedford: I'm still trying to come to terms with the new name but, from advertisements at Bedford station to the logos on drays and brewery buildings, there's no doubt that the new merged company is up and running.
Nigel McNally, managing director of W&Y, backed by a fact-based presentation, explained that the new company was not just based on Young's fruitless search for a new site in London. Both former companies believe ale will revive, with cask beer in particular destined to return to growth, and W&Y
is determined to become a "champion of
the sector".
Nigel has good reason to feel bullish, as he owns two big cask brands. Wells Bombardier is the fastest-growing premium cask ale while Young's Bitter holds the same position in the standard sector.
The new company has a sales team of 71, which is almost as big as that enjoyed by the likes of Coors and InBev. Their job will be to sell W&Y's portfolio of beers and offer what Nigel calls a "one-stop-shop for ales".
It was clear from listening to him that the ale sector of the industry has been down-played, sidelined and ignored to an extent that makes you scratch your head in bewilderment.
The sector is worth £4.5bn a year. That's the figure I write in my notebook but when I returned home I phoned W&Y to make sure I hadn't scribbled billion when I should have written million.
The original figure is correct and it's worth repeating: the ale sector is worth £4.5bn a year. And yet the four global brewers that dominate the British market - Carlsberg, Coors, In Bev and Scottish & Newcastle UK - show a declining interest in the style.
Nigel McNally emphasised the point by producing figures from marketing analysts AC Nielsen that show that in the past two years Coors has lost £170m in sales of ale, InBev £108m, Carlsberg £73m and S&N £26m. You have to wonder whether the accountants and marketing people in these giant companies have had their brains sucked out by the Cybermen, for it's difficult to believe how such losses can be justified.
Coors, which occupies the former Bass breweries in Burton-on-Trent, has ripped out the racking lines, which means it cannot produce cask beer. The handful of cask brands it still owns, such as M&B Mild and Brew XI, Stones, Hancock's and Worthington, have been out-sourced to regional brewers.
InBev has followed a similar course, with Draught Bass and Boddington's brewed for it by Marston's and Hydes respectively.
Carlsberg still owns the Tetley brewery in Leeds but having under-promoted cask Tetley's for years now seems to have also lost interest in the keg version. S&NUK's devotion to the cause can be seen from the fact that it has closed both its ale breweries in Edinburgh and Newcastle and concentrated production at John Smith's in Yorkshire.
If I were a shareholder in any of these companies I would ask questions about why they have turned their backs on a sector worth £4.5bn a year.
But the exit from the sector by the globals hands a tremendous advantage to the likes of Greene King, Wolverhampton & Dudley and Wells & Young's.
Nigel McNally sees only pluses in the situation. He thinks the smoke ban will present a big opportunity for cask ale, as it will attract discerning consumers to pubs who are currently deterred by smoky atmospheres.
His company is convinced that cask beer will soon return to growth and will appeal in particular to consumers of 45 years and above, who have the highest disposable incomes.
The Bedford brewery, with a capacity of half a million barrels, is going full bore and can have additional kit bolted on to cope with demand. With less than 10% of Wells's beers going to its tied trade and 15% of Young's brands to its pubs, W&Y is now a powerful force in the national free trade, breathing down the necks of Greene King and W&D.
Happy days!
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