Will CMBC launching its own ‘fresh ale’ shake up the beer sector?

​​Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC) is launching ‘fresh ale’ in a bid to begin “reinvigorating” Britain’s beer and pub culture.

The ‘fresh ale’ concept, which according to CMBC, “marries an exquisite flavour and body similar to cask ale, but with a shelf-life of up to 14 days” was first introduced by Otter Brewery in May 2023 when it set out to bridge the gap between craft beer, cask ale and lager.

How close is it to what Otter Brewery launched last spring? Speaking to the drinks business, CMBC vice president of marketing John Clements admitted: “There are some parallels” and explained that fresh ale “goes through a secondary fermentation but, unlike cask, we do that in the brewery and then we filter out the yeast, but it remains an unpasteurised product. This means it still has a shorter shelf life than keg ale, but it extends the shelf life and it’s in a 30 litre keg, so a smaller vessel size, and it will last 14 days.”

In terms of the drinker demographic, he also confirmed that it will not be targeted at hipsters. Clements explained: “We’re not trying to be like down with the cool kids with this.” This is for all ale drinkers, but it’s for drinkers that would walk into a pub and normally not get one so it’s a chance for ale drinkers to get an ale in pubs that don’t do cask, but also a chance for lager drinkers to reappraise ale where they’ve perhaps drifted out of cask and gone into world lager.”

Addressing concerns over the headwinds cask ale has faced over the years, Clements said: “We’ve seen cask have some challenges over recent years and, actually, in the last four years, we’ve navigated three big storms, both in retail, and for brewers. We all know what they are: Covid, the war in Ukraine and hyperinflation, then the cost-of-living crisis — which has actually impacted the ale category more than it has impacted lager. Pub visits happened less, and so cask ale suffered. We [CMBC] estimate that 7,000 handpulls have disappeared from bars over the last three to four years. Increasingly, publicans are telling us that they don’t have the throughputs to warrant it being on the bar.”

Really, the big question is: Will fresh ale cannibalise cask? According to Clements, CMBC is “a leading supplier of cask scale in the UK. And that’s our number one passion. We’ve got a huge portfolio and we want cask served in tip top condition. And we’re very, very proud of that. If you cut us, we bleed cask. It’s critically important for us”.

Plus, he reassured: “We’ll continue to champion cask ale and we continue to bring new beers into the market, and we continue to invest in cask. But, actually, we’ve got to find solutions. For those pubs who can’t get those throughputs of 24 pints a day. That’s a big number for some pubs. So how do we find a solution? And how do we find a solution that means it’s almost hassle-free for them so that they can almost plug and play? We said: ‘How do we take the secondary fermentation out of the pub to somewhere in the brewery so that there is a format solution that they can get in a keg and still have the beautiful theatre that goes with cask but still offer a brewery-conditioned ale rather than a cask-conditioned ale?”

Clements then stated: “We don’t want to replace cask ale. We want to preserve cask ale as much as possible. And that message has to be loud and clear. This is not an ‘instead of’. With coffee, you know, if you don’t have the throughput to have a trained barista and everything that goes into making the perfect cup of coffee, you still need a solution to make great coffee. So these are for those kinds of either smaller outlets or outlets that don’t have the throughput. We’re not looking at taking cask out. The top of the agenda will always be put cask in where we can guarantee the throughput.”

When asked how much like cask ale fresh ale would be, CMBC did say that there were similarities. But Clements told db: “It’s not cask, but it’s an attempt to get a similar flavour profile from the mouthfeel and the pub only has to sell seven pints a day to maintain freshness.”

Querying its pricepoint, CMBC also pointed out that it would be a quality product, but that there would be no wastage and this would be of benefit to publicans. He explained: “Like all of our ales, they have different cost of goods, depending on their recipes and size production runs, so the costs, costs can differ. [Compared to cask] “it costs a little bit more to produce and therefore it costs a little bit more for us to sell,” but “remember, these are not for cask houses, these are for [public] houses that would ordinarily not be able to sell ale.”

In addition, he highlighted how “there’s no waste as there’s no sediment left in the bottom of a cask. So we think all things being equal, it works well for the world and for the public. And gives pub goers the chance to get an ale in a pub where ordinarily, they might just walk into a sea of lager.”

Indeed, the way CMBC sees it, “it’s a chance for them [drinkers] to reappraise ale” because, as he reminded: “if we can get it back on the bars of pubs where it’s been lost. In terms of the number of stockists, there are fewer stockists of cask ale. Well, if we just make a dent in that to just get ale back on the bar, serving all its glory, that’s not a bad thing”.

Fresh ale will, however, be housed on the bar where the handpulls reside, CMBC has confirmed. Clements said: “It would be in a position that would have historically been for cask ale, but this is for sites that are either contemplating on taking cask out because they can’t get the throughputs to maintain quality, or for those that might be lapsed stockists and want to put an ale back on the bar.”

With this in mind, when asked if putting fresh ale where cask ale resides might dissuade publicans to ever switch to cask, Clements insisted: “That’s something that we don’t want to do. In fact, we’re investing in the cask market. In the last couple of years, we’ve bought some new beers into the marketplace. We’ve invested more into key brands, like Wainwright and Hobgoblin and we’ve put new glassware out there and made the visual identity more contemporary and we’ll be marketing those cask beers this year. [Pushing cask ale off the bar entirely] is the last thing we want to do as a leading cask provider.”

Instead, the plan for fresh ale is for more people to be recruited via fresh ale and then to trade up to cask. Clements said: “That’s something that would be a brilliant halo effect. Getting people to reappraise ale and say ‘this has got more flavour or a beautiful mouthfeel’ via the theatre of the serve and then they go and seek out those stockists. A utopia might be that it starts to generate interest in ale and that people can take fresh ale and put cask back in. But this is about getting people to reappraise ale and give the pub goer something that they can’t get at home. That’s really important to us. You know, we want to support British folks and make sure that they can get a great pint in the pub. I think that any passionate people, whether brewers or publicans that have a passion for cask don’t see it as agony. They see it as something of which they are very proud. You can take shortcuts in the kitchen. But people who run good gastro pubs will take pride in how the food is produced and presented. Cask is the kind of gastro pub equivalent. But this is for those outlets that can’t put that kind of love and dedication into the product.”

The product has already been on a test run, but the plan is really to launch fresh ale and then make adaptations along the way. Clements explained: “We will cherry pick [public] houses that might have had low throughputs. We’ve also trialled it in a couple of free trade sites. But we’re now in a position where we’re going to test and learn as we go. I’m a big believer in thinking that, as long as it’s nothing material, you can fix the plane while you’re flying it. Which means we’re going to launch into the trade, see how it goes and if we have to make any course corrections as we go, we will. But so far so good.” Plus, he reiterated, fresh ale will start with just three beers and go from there.

Clements added: “We’re only launching on three as a pilot. Wainwrights Gold, which is one of the fastest-growing cask ales at the moment. Wainwrights Amber, which is a more kind of slightly darker beer with more body. Then, for someone that wants more hops in their beer, Hobgoblin IPA. Those are the three that we’re launching with.”

The category has already received the backing of The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) chief executive Emma McClarkin, who stated: “Britain’s brewers are committed to innovation and continuing to provide their customers with the best beer in the world. Cask ale is an iconic part of British culture, and CMBC’s fresh ale is a great example of the fusion of tradition and transformation that our brewers are passionate about creating.”

Despite the BBPA backing, CAMRA has responded to say that the concept will confuse consumers and suggested that CMBC puts more effort into championing cask.

CAMRA national director and chair of the real ale, cider and perry campaigns committee, Gillian Hough said: “It’s baffling why CMBC feels the need to serve a keg beer through cask ale handpumps in the first place, when it would seem to be simpler and more honest to simply serve it through keg taps, as with all other keg products. It would be even better if this company, despite claiming to be incredibly proud to be a leading brewer of cask ale, actually invested in producing new cask ales and supporting its existing beers. It’s particularly ironic that instead it has spent time closing the historic breweries in their portfolio and now wants to cash in on that cask heritage with a keg product which hijacks the handpump.”

Hough explained: “Even with additional labelling, our fear is customers – especially those who perhaps don’t understand a term like ‘brewery conditioned’ or don’t notice the small print- will be confused. It also seems likely that over time this potentially misleading approach will erode the image of the iconic beer handpump as a clear symbol of cask conditioned beer.”

Hough, riled by the initiative, added: “We [CAMRA] believe that beer drinkers should be fully informed at the point of dispense and we will continue to condemn dispense practices that seek to mislead the consumer, particularly by selling non-live, non-cask beers through cask beer handpumps. CAMRA calls on CMBC to either provide a genuinely live and fresh beer to be served through handpumps, to give the drinker what they expect and want, or to be honest and serve this so-called ‘fresh beer’ through keg taps.”

To find out more about the ‘fresh ale’ category when it was first launched by Otter Brewery, read more from db here.