Changes planned for Cask Ale Week

Changes are planned for next year's week-long national celebration of cask ale.

More regional PR, better and cheaper point-of-sale kits, and fewer but more focused events are the changes expected at Cask Ale Week 2010, organisers Cask Marque told the MA.

It comes as new figures show cask-ale sales jumped by up to 10% at Punch and Enterprise pubs that took part in last year's event.

Cask Marque director Paul Nunny said: "We did really well in year one, now we're just tweaking it for year two."

In 2010, the week-long celebrations will take place between Monday 29 March and Monday 5 April.

The focus for 2010 will be on generating promotions in pubs for the benefit of consumers.

Encouraging brand owners to produce point-of-sale kits, with cask-ale logos, is part of the strategy.

"Last year we supplied generic Cask Ale Week kits that cost £40, in 2010 we will supply kits that cost £20, and are mainly paper-based. We'll encourage suppliers to produce more juicy kits to drive sales."

PR will become more regionally-focused, Nunny said, though it will maintain its national coverage using Seal PR. There are plans for "a steering group of key PR and marketing staff, used by the brewers, and dotted around the country".

Nunny said he had begun talking to managed operators about running promotions and had so far received a favourable response from Wetherspoon's.

Ale sales boost​

Punch said like-for-like cask-ale sales increased 10.8% at the 2009 Cask Ale Week. Promoted brands increased their share of the category by 3.5%. In total, 17% of Punch's estate took part in the celebrations, with 170 beer festivals run.

Enterprise Inns showed a 10.7% like-for-like rise in sales in April. More than 20% of its estate participated in the event.