The tide is starting to turn, says Roger Protz

Hawk-eyed readers may recall that I wrote recently about beer and pubs living in two parallel universes.

There's one inhabited by the global brewers and analysts such as AC Nielsen, who consider that the ale market is not worth the candle.

And there's the universe I inhabit - or should that be hermit's cell? - in which dedicated craft brewers are flourishing and recording ever-increasing sales. As I update the breweries information for the next edition of the Good Beer Guide I note that in entry after entry brewers are busily installing new kit to keep pace with demand.

And it's not just the micros that are doing well. Last week's MA reported both Fuller's and Timothy Taylor chalking up glowing profits.

Adnams in Suffolk has made a mighty investment in both a new brewhouse and eco-friendly warehouse complex. When I first came across Adnams in the late 1970s it was a small brewery on the coast, supplying beer to a clutch of tied houses in Suffolk, with a tiny amount of free trade in London. Today, Adnams Bitter and Broadside are all over the plaza and are truly national brands.

The thing I can't get my head around is that even the big global brewers admit the ale sector is worth £4bn a year but they don't want a part of it. Until, that is, the market starts to turn.

Earlier this year, a top sales executive from a global brewer asked me if I thought his company should get back into ale as the premium lager market was static whereas ale did show small signs of recovery. I naturally pointed him in the direction of the cask beer version of the Road to Damascus, but added it would cost his company, as some years ago it tore out all the racking lines in its brewery and can't actually produce the stuff anymore.

An interesting sign of the times comes in the shape of a new Majestic wine warehouse round the corner from Protz Towers. The shutters were only halfway up when Mrs P was suggesting we should pop in "just for a look". Not surprisingly, we departed with a few bottles of fermented grape juice, but not before I had had a good gander at the beer section.

I was under-whelmed. There's nothing wrong with the likes of Adnams, Wells, Young's and St Peter's but they are easily obtainable and, better still, on draught. I like to be pleasantly surprised by beers I either haven't tried before or which are rare in my part of the country.

But there were no surprises. There was one global lager I wouldn't wash my socks in and even the German lagers were familiar export brands. At the checkout the manager, having spotted my saunter down the beer aisle, asked what I thought of the choice.

I must have paused for a nanosecond because before I could respond, he added: "Not impressed, I can see. Well, don't judge us on what we've got on display. We've been almost wiped out of beer since we opened."

He told me that Majestic's beer portfolio had changed out of all recognition in the past year. "We used to sell more lager than ale but now it's completely turned around," he said, "and ale is our biggest seller."

You could argue that Majestic is not typical of beer retailers. It sells beer by the case, not the bottle, which appeals to the better-heeled sector of society.

But no two retailers are the same. No two pubs are the same: one will busily promote cask beer with banners and chalkboards outside and in, while the next pub in the neighbourhood will avoid cask like the plague.

A mile from my Majestic, Morrisons had a truly dreadful beer choice when it took over from Safeway. Now the choice is brilliant and I can cheerfully come away with several excellent bottles. And that branch of Morrisons is in downtown St Albans, not posh at all.

These are subjective observations. I am not a marketing expert. But my advice to that sales director from the global brewery is: invest in some racking lines. The ale worm is turning.

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