Given that almost 1.7 billion litres of beer were poured in British venues in the past year, you’d think we’d be able to keep the country’s biggest beer festival afloat. It is therefore sad to hear that the Great British Beer Festival will be taken off tap next year, its organisers claiming it can no longer afford to get its round in.
‘In the simplest of terms, we did not get enough people through the doors to cover costs,’ according to Ash Corbett-Collins, the chair of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), who may well be ruing the decision to move the festival to Birmingham, cited by more sceptical beer fans as a hindrance to the event’s footfall.
It’s not the only skunky smell around Britain’s leading beer champions, who appear increasingly tired and emotional. As well as canning its winter festival, the campaign will not be printing the next edition of its magazine, as it bewails stagnant membership numbers.
It’s particularly poignant in the run-up to Cask Ale Week, a marketing excuse for the ‘real ales’ that Camra has been protecting the virtue of for more than half a century. Cask boosters have been hoping to recruit a few Gen Z drinkers to the cause and a recent survey has suggested that young people are increasingly dabbling in cellar-temperature liquid over chilled fare.
Brewers will be encouraged by the fact that many young adults spent the summer splitting the G on Guinness pints, having drunk taps of the black stuff dry last Christmas. The enthusiasm for Dublin’s most famous export has been spurred on by TikTok trends, as well as the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, Kim Kardashian and the Princess of Wales being pictured checking whether Guinness really is good for their health.
Converting even a small measure of stout’s young enthusiasts would help turn around cask beer’s sustained decline in sales. Only 128 million litres of cask were sold in hospitality venues in the year to February, according to industry bible the Morning Advertiser’s latest annual beer report, compared to 198 million litres of stout.
The decline in cask volumes is testament to Camra’s inability to halt decades of decline, most drinkers having switched to lager or, more recently, craft beer. Tastes change of course, and casketeers can justifiably complain about pubs who have decided that cask is more hassle than it’s worth. But landlords might equally point back across the bar at what may be the leading factor behind cask’s decline – the old farts who already drink it.
Camra members’ curmudgeonliness has long been the stuff of legend, a feat for what should be an obscure members’ organisation. Noted beer writer Pete Brown once recounted an almost implausibly perfect story of two alleged train video-wielding members in a Sheffield bar, demanding a discount in the manner of a Chicago mob boss. Crawl around the internet and you won’t struggle to find similar tales of entitlement, pedantry and general arseholery associated with real ale fans. Even Viz’s ‘Real Ale Twats’ strip, which is told with a certain amount of fondness, suggests drinking cask should be added to the diagnostic criteria for autism.
No doubt some of this is a fashionable disdain for men more broadly
No doubt some of this is a fashionable disdain for men more broadly, as confirmed by many similar stereotypes attached to the James Watt impersonators who frequent craft beer taprooms. Previous attempts to broaden real ale’s appeal, for example by discouraging members from terms as problematic as ‘pub crawl’, also smack of misguided wokery rather than a considered strategy.
Yet the proof of the pint is in the sipping, and real ale should learn from its rivals. Craft beer may have plateaued, but it’s after a decade of soaring popularity driven by innovation, audacity and guile. While real ale fans admire military relics in Bovington Tank Museum, BrewDog drives armoured vehicles down the streets of Camden.
Some traditional brewers have already taken note. Badger Brewery is one example of a brewer that has modernised its bottle designs, as well as launching a craftier sub-brand in Outland. At the same time, newer keg-focused breweries are often spotted dabbling in cask, paying tribute to Britain’s brewing heritage. Sadly, that appears to be against the instincts of many Camra members, who can’t even muster the enthusiasm to broaden their remit beyond ‘real ale’ into other beers, ciders and perries. They should sober up, or face the bottom of the barrel.
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