Is lager the future for ale brewers?
Yet this month two of the biggest ale brewers in the country launched keg lagers in the same week – Marston’s with Revisionist and Fuller’s with Frontier.
The beard and sandal brigade will no doubt be up in arms. CAMRA has fought a long, hard battle to rid the world of bland keg beers and to champion real ale.
Indeed, recently it has seemed the battle was won as ale became trendy and consequently outperformed in a difficult market.
In many ways however, this was the easy victory - persuading older, affluent, male drinkers of the virtues of ale was plain sailing compared to the challenges we face with the rest of the market.
This is why a move into keg beers with a lager is a clever tactic.
Such beers are more accessible for many drinkers and the term “craft lager” will break down many a barrier to trial. In this way these two new additions pave a path into the ale category for a far bigger number of
drinkers, from a far wider demographic, than ale itself can.
Keg beers and lagers aren’t the enemies of real ale but key allies in the fight to educate people about all that is great about British beer and the pubs it is served in.
