Cask category 'building back steadily'

While this year’s particularly hot summer and the pandemic did little to draw people to cask beer, Bartholomew said ensuring consistent quality, perhaps across smaller selections, in pubs was the best way to keep the category​ “alive” as it rebuilds. 

This comes as Wadworth​ recently revealed its plans to move to a smaller brewing site to reduce the volume of beer it produces in line with its tenants' needs following the pandemic and allowing for "lots of different types" of cask without waste. 

Quality initiative 

Bartholomew said: “We are producing the amount we want to produce in terms of our tenants and our managers who used to have three or four handles on the bar, now they have two or three because they're worried about the short life expectancy of it.

"People like to have a different range, we've seen that with customers, the difference from now to 20 years ago, they constantly want [something] different and want to know the story about what that is and the different cask out there.

“We're focusing on our quality initiative, internally, to ensure whoever walks into our pubs has the best pint they can and that is the way to keep the category alive, because we don't want the inconsistency out there.

“The future for cask​ is bright, although we are in a really tough situation at the moment.”

Proper craft beer 

However, to achieve this bright future, more must be done to encourage and educate people on the "proper craft" of cask. 

Bartholomew said: “Do people really understand cask​ beer? I don't think they do, particularly at a younger level.

“And that's our responsibility to make them understand. They talk about the craft revolution, [but] this is proper craft beer, there's a lot more work that goes into [cask] than any lager.

“A lot of people still don't understand what cask is, the secondary fermentation process that goes on within the cellar of the pub, and how important the landlord or landlady is to that beer being poured in front of them.”