Cask Report

This report aims to give a positive and factually accurate look at cask ale – Britain's national drink. While it aims to promote cask, it also strives to be balanced. It looks at both good and bad, strengths and weaknesses.

The Cask Report is backed by all major brewers and trade bodies in the cask beer industry, and written each year by independent award-winning writer Pete Brown.

Download the report here

Download the powerpoint presentation here (8MB pdf)

The Cask Report tells you everything you need to know about Cask Ale, Britain's National Drink. Cask ale is a crafted, artisanal product that offers drinkers something different, flavourful and satisfying, and gives pubs a proven point of difference that builds business and profit. That's why cask ale is outperforming the rest of the beer market.

The Cask Report is backed by all major brewers and trade bodies in the cask beer industry, and written each year by independent award-winning writer Pete Brown.

Cask beer is Britain’s national drink - a living, fresh, flavoursome product that sits at the heart of British pub culture.

A few years ago many people had written it off as being in terminal decline, but over the last few years, cask beer has seen a remarkable turnaround. It's now outperforming every other beer style, benefitting from the increasing demand for products with local provenance, natural ingredients and interesting flavours.

And while the average retail price of cask beer is lower than that of many other beers, cask beer creates a value chain for publicans who stock it and keep it in good condition.

Cask ale is outperforming the rest of the beer market. In the context of a dire year for beer across the board, cask ale has been the star performer, doing better than any other ale or lager category. In the year to May 2008, cask shows only a slight marginal decline: -1.3% in volume, and only -0.3% in value. This compares to a total beer market decline of 8%, and means cask ale is doing better than not only keg and smoothflow ales, but also standard and premium lagers. (All figures from Nielsen). Cask ale is therefore growing its share of the total beer market.

Regional and local ale brewers have seen an overall return to net value growth...read our pdf document 

In an age of ever-more monolithic global corporations and homogenous high streets, one of the most appealing aspects of the cask ale industry is that it is disparate, regionalised and made up of many different bodies and groups. The only problem is that the industry is sometimes criticised for not speaking with one, unified voice.

This report is an attempt to help change that.

It has been funded by a variety of brewers and organisations from across the industry,...read our pdf document