Waiting for the other guy to blink first

There scarcely seems to be a week that goes by when GBG ticker Martin Taylor doesn’t go into a smart dining pub in some leafy part of the country on a weekday lunchtime, spot more cask beers on the bar than there are people drinking them, and end up with a glass that varies between mediocre and undrinkable. It’s generally acknowledged that there is a widespread problem with pubs stocking more beers than their turnover justifies, with the inevitable knock-on effect on quality. Indeed, this was acknowledged in the recent Cask Report:

Five years ago, I wrote how a simple mathematical exercise shows that the average pub serving cask beer does not have the turnover to justify more than two lines, yet the simple evidence of one’s eyes shows that the actual average number is considerably more. Matters have certainly not improved in the intervening years. On yesterday’s trip to Leicester (full report to come) we visited eight pubs, by no means all specialist alehouses, where the average number of different beers on sale was seven. Only one of them could have been called busy, and that was one with the second lowest number of pumps. We only actually encountered one returnable beer, which was changed without demur, but that had clearly been lingering in the pipes for days.

This issue seems to be generally acknowledged within the trade, yet there is a strange reluctance to actually do anything about it. I’m sure a lot of it comes from a fear of being the first pub to blink and be seen to be reducing its range, which may be perceived as a sign of retrenchment or failure. And CAMRA doesn’t help with its constant demands for “more choice” and lauding pubs when they add another pump to an already over-extended range. But, as long as it isn’t addressed, the endemic problem of slow turnover leading to poor quality will remain, and continue to lose sales for cask to more reliable kegs, thus creating a vicious circle.

It is true that some specialist beer pubs do manage to sustain ten or more beers in good condition, but that is because they have a specific appeal to beer drinkers, so 80% of their customers are drinking cask, as opposed to less than 20% in more mainstream pubs. And I’ve been in well-known GBG-listed multi-beer pubs when on a Tuesday lunchtime the beer has been distinctly past its best. If you only drink on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights you may not notice a problem.

In the past, I’ve mischievously suggested that pubs should display on each pumpclip the day and time that the beer was put on sale. Clearly that isn’t going to happen, as it would expose far too much poor stock management practice, but it would certainly concentrate a few minds if it did. Perhaps a more realistic option would be for Cask Marque to include within its assessment viewing pubs’ records of stock and sales, and failing pubs that routinely keep beers on beyond three days.

I know it may be an unfashionable view that goes right against the current CAMRA orthodoxy, but I would contend that fully half of all pubs currently serving cask only have the turnover to keep two beers in decent condition. And a substantial number, especially those dining pubs without any real beer-drinking customer base, should only be serving one throughout the week, with possibly another tapped on a Friday to sell over the weekend when it’s busier. “Guinness is their draught stout; XXX is their cask ale”. It’s never going to happen, though.