Pete Brown has told an audience of beer experts customers see cask beer as a premium product and say it should be priced as high as any ‘premium lager’ at the bar.
“There’s nothing like this.” Some of the more ‘seasoned’ readers may remember this as a hit song for soul singer Omar 30 years again when it peaked at number 14 in the UK music charts. However, the statement also rings true of cask ale.
Beer waste too bitter a pill: ‘As I engage with my own customers, I’ve learned that many have decided to leave their real ale taps off for the foreseeable future’ Like so many of us in this industry, I share in the hope that is being pinned on Monday 12 April – for England at least, if not for my home country of Wales.
Outdoor hospitality is not the solution for all venues of course and some will have the space to maximise this better than others, but it’s a start. Plus, if Boris Johnson’s ‘irreversible roadmap’ is to be taken at face value – a whole other discussion of course – it’s a start of better things to come.
Now though we’ve had time to think harder about how our businesses work and many pubs are bringing in money-saving equipment and software to help boost the bottom line.
In the middle of the coronavirus pandemic pubs had to switch their businesses into more tech-focused operations for various reasons, but the main driver was the need for booking and payment systems.
Countless apps rose from the nowhere and were taken up by desperate operators who needed solutions to problems they’d never encountered before – mainly ordering and paying from tables but also the need for more intelligent booking software.