Fresh Ale was introduced to the on-trade by then named Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC) in March 2024 – with the premise being a cask-style beer sold in keg format.
While cask ale, which undergoes a secondary fermentation in the barrel, should be at its optimum quality for just three days, Fresh Ale stays at its peak for 14 days.
Carlsberg Britvic said an increase in the number of pubs and bars buying Fresh Ale will help “reinvigorate the popularity of cask”.
However, at the time of launch, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) was vociferous in calling Fresh Ale a ‘handpump hijack’ because the beer style uses a cask ale hand-pull but does not use gravity to draw the beer because it comes from a keg.
CAMRA said at the time: “While CMBC has indicated that, following feedback from CAMRA, it will label so-called ‘Fresh Ale’ served through handpumps as ‘brewery conditioned beer’, CAMRA fears this will still confuse customers and erode their long-held understanding that only cask beer is served in this way.
“The campaign is also concerned CMBC’s plan will reduce choice to consumers and by taking up handpump space elbows out genuine cask beers produced by smaller, independent brewers.”
New fans
The group even took the fight to the Government and wrote to then business secretary Kemi Badenoch to allow National Trading Standards to investigate.
A spokesperson for Carlsberg Britvic gave an update on Fresh Ale, which it sells in brands Wainwright Gold, Wainwright Amber and Hobgoblin IPA, to The Morning Advertiser.
They said: “Since its launch last March [last year], Fresh Ale has been building greater distribution in both the free-trade and across national accounts, allowing even more pubs to offer this innovative product to consumers.
“Volume has been growing steadily since last year as new fans continue to discover the style, demonstrating the increasing demand for high-quality ale options on the bar.
“Fresh Ale enables pubs to enhance their traditional ale offering, and the flexibility that the 14-day shelf-life of Fresh Ale provides is designed to allow more pubs to offer more great ales.
Warm reception
“By keeping hand-pulls in use and serving great-quality pints, we can encourage ale fans to return to outlets again and again, as well as recruit new consumers to the category – a necessity if we are going to reinvigorate the popularity of cask.
“We have been pleased by the warm reception of Fresh Ale among our publicans, who have received Fresh Ale very positively and provided excellent feedback on its impact for their pub.
“One consistent area for praise is the improvement they have noticed in their rate of sale and we’re proud Fresh Ale is enabling customers to use more space on their bars for ales.
“Cask ale is a fantastic product that continues to play a huge role in British pub culture. We remain fully committed to cask ales and want cask and Fresh Ale to succeed side by side on the bar.
“That’s why Fresh Ale is marked ‘Brewery Conditioned’ at point of purchase, to ensure pubgoers are aware of the difference – but can be assured of a great pint whatever they choose.”
A year ago, beer sommelier Annabel Smith saw the argument from both sides and noted back then: “I’m in agreement with CAMRA’s point about hand-pulls. These are sacred to real ale; they signify a unique beer style familiar to millions of consumers.
“However, I don’t think CMBC has set out to deliberately ‘dupe and confuse consumers’. They observed what Otter Brewery (a perfectly respectable cask producing brewery with an excellent reputation for cask ale) had been doing for more than a year and scaled it up.
“Additionally, it could be argued that drinkers disillusioned with the variable quality of traditional cask ale may be drawn back to the category. Optimistically, could Fresh Ale turn around the fortunes of ‘real ale’?”
