Regional brewers unite to promote cask

Regional brewers have formed a new marketing body dedicated to raising the profile of cask beer.

The Why Handpull? Marketing Group hopes to launch a national campaign aimed at attracting more consumers to the product.

The new group is the brainchild of leading UK regional brewers Wells & Youngs, Greene King, Fuller's, Marstons and Caledonian.

Marketing executives from the five brewers are already working on initiatives to promote the group which has adopted a central aim of promoting cask beer as a single category rather than advertising individual brands.

A number of marketing techniques have already been identified such as agreed terminology for cask beer which will encourage use of words such as "taste", "flavour", "Britishness" and "freshness."

The group hopes to support the forthcoming Cask Ale Week, which runs from 6-13 April and also the Campaign For Real Ale's Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) in August.

Group member Chris Lewis, marketing director at Wells & Youngs, said there was a need for the industry to talk with one voice to the consumer and take part in a cross industry campaign.

"We want to raise the profile of cask beer by modernising its image and its appeal to consumers," said Lewis.

"We've got a job to do to get consumers into cask beer by using our expertise within the group to get more people to drink a really great product.

"The thrust of the marketing will be concentrate on the general cask beer category instead of the traditional way of advertising individual brands.

"Basically its all about growing the size of the pie," he added.