Batten down the hatches! The people with nothing better to do have been falling over themselves to get on the radio, telly and internet to call Timothy Taylor “woke” these past few weeks.

The cause of the outrage? Timmy T’s latest brand refresh. The Keighley brewer has replaced its pumpclip illustrations of white men in the role of landlord, boltmaker etc with... slightly different illustrations of white men in the role of landlord, boltmaker etc. The Spectator labelled it “a disgrace,” while the Sun salivated over the drinkers who were “enraged” by the “Gen Z rebrand”.

Now, the new design engendered absolutely no reaction in me whatsoever. It’s fine. I have no strong feelings about it in any direction.

Some people saying the younger man on the new Landlord pumpclip comes across as a little bit “Madri-ish”, which is possibly a fair comment and, as such, a little unfortunate. The feature that gripped me the most is the Landlord’s extraordinary ability to age in reverse. After all, it was only 10 years ago that Taylor’s signature pint-puller was a portly, balding gentleman with tufts of grey hair about his temples. No one seems to have missed him and I’m pretty sure everyone will settle down over this young new upstart soon.

I bet you think you know where I’m going with this one, don’t you? Why, oh why must they all be males? Where are the women Making their Bolts or Besting their Goldens? Well frankly, in 1960, Timothy Taylor’s tagline was “beers for men of the North”. It has managed to leave that in the past and I’m grateful it didn’t choose to stick a woman on the label for Blonde, so I’m not about to take umbrage. That’s not the point I’m here to make.

No, the point I want to make is that thanks to all of the spluttering indignation (which, let’s face it, has surely made this rebrand one of the hottest media events in cask beer this year) most media outlets seem to have overlooked the most important part of the story. The rebrand is just a part of the brewery’s investment into the “long-term future of cask”. That’s the bit that interests me.

In the run up to Cask Ale Week, Timothy Taylor’s has announced a £9m investment into its brewery over the next five years and an injection of a further £3m a year for marketing. That’s astounding. And greatly heartening. The makers of Britain’s best-selling cask beer are banging a very loud drum and demonstrating their long-term commitment to live ale. They are putting their money where their mouth is and perhaps that rising tide will lift all ships. Things feel very different to when Molson Coors-owned Doom Bar was the top-selling cask brand.

Roger Protz told us recently that there are so many reasons to be optimistic about the future of cask and I agree. Timothy Taylor has seen fantastic growth and that is enabling investment back into the business. Love him or hate him, you can’t argue with Jeremy Clarkson’s Hawkstone committing to a £2.77 million English hop contract over three years with Charles Faram. That’s helping to support the long-term sustainability of hop farmers and safeguarding some of the raw ingredients found in all our favourite pints – not just those brewed by Hawkstone.

That’s not all. Bass, celebrating its 250th birthday next year, has finally started to get a marketing boost from the Budweiser Brewing Group and is now reportedly the fastest-growing cask beer brand by value. This, and the growth in sales reported by a number of other venerable cask brands, is being linked to an increasing interest from younger drinkers in “cask ales with provenance and heritage”, or so said Adam Russell, Wadworth’s commercial director in a recent press release for Cask Ale Week.

The commercial landscape is not easy for breweries or pubs at the moment. We know that. But the increasing amount of self-led investment that the industry is managing to make is really helping to up the appeal and availability of cask. Surely that must bring good cheer to the heart of any CAMRA member? I don’t mind whether my pint is pulled by Timothy Taylor’s Landlord of today, last week or 2016, so long as he’s still got good cask beer available to pour.

Get involved with Cask Ale Week (17-27 September – yes, I know that’s more than a week) through caskaleweek.co.uk.