I had expected there to be good news, verging on celebration. Having travelled the length and breadth of the UK over the past couple of years in my capacity as a journalist, anecdotally it genuinely feels as though cask beer is in rude health. There is renewed interest among drinkers, certain brands feel like they are booming. As Cask Ale Week rolled around once again this September, I was ready to see the data that would back up this feeling – and yet, it wasn’t to be.

According to a report compiled by Nielsen IQ and published by the Morning Advertiser in September, sales of cask beer over the past year have fallen by 19.7 per cent. This dramatic decline brings the cask categories total volume to just 979,000 hectolitres – or to put it in layman's terms, 172.2m pints. That’s just under 3.1 cask pints consumed, per year, for every UK adult of drinking age.

Why then, despite the data not supporting my own evidence, do I still feel like there’s a positive future on the cards for cask beer? And what, indeed, is the real cause of the category's continued sharp decline?

In previous columns for What’s Brewing I’ve analysed the success of certain cask brands. Over the past 18 months we’ve seen Timothy Taylor’s Landlord rise to become the best selling cask beer in the country, ahead of Sharp’s Doom Bar, which held the position for the previous 13 years. I’ve also communicated the success of resurgent brands including Boddington’s – now produced in cask under licence by Manchester’s JW Lees – and Bass, the latter of which has seen sales growth of 23 per cent in its most recent trading year. On a visit to T&R Theakston last year, MD Simon Theakston was bullish about the success of its flagship Best Bitter and Old Peculier brands, which are both in growth. At Thornbridge, its own flagship product, Jaipur, is now nationally listed in JD Wetherspoon pubs, contributing to the Derbyshire-based business’s success.

However, it’s when you look at the brands that are not doing so well that the picture begins to become clear. Doom Bar’s decline is dramatic, with owner Molson Coors shutting its brewing home in Rock, Cornwall and moving remaining production to Cameron’s in Hartlepool. In Burton-upon-Trent Carlsberg Britvic is threatening to shut the historic Marston’s brewery in 2027. This is the home to the production of both Marston’s Pedigree, and Bass, which is produced under licence for the brand’s owner, Budweiser Brewing UK. Other national brands such as Adnams, have also communicated honestly about their recent struggles, which includes the report of falling sales.

The bigger picture, then, would seem to indicate that it’s the larger producers of cask beer are the ones which are struggling, and this would make sense in terms of the data showing such a steep decline in cask volumes. This is backed up by reporting from the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) which reports that cask volumes among its 700-or so members have remained relatively flat year-on-year.

Turning my attention back to Cask Ale Week, while looking at figures in front of us, it makes sense that much of its own campaigning over its 2026 event period (17-27 September) focused almost entirely on supporting large, regional breweries. In a compilation of Breweries of the Day published over the course of the week, that included both the beleaguered Adnams and the booming Tim Taylor, the smallest brewery to feature in terms of production output was Daniel Thwaites. Admittedly Thwaites has dramatically downsized in recent years, now producing approximately 8,500 hectolitres (1.5m pints) of beer annually. However, it’s not a particularly small company, as it also owns around 200 licensed and managed properties, and more than 20 hotels.

What I felt was missing from this years’ Cask Ale Week, was a wider focus on the category’s smallest producers — which, in business terms, is often referred to as “the long tail”. Of the approximately 1,500 breweries in the UK, more than 1,000 of these produce less than 2,000hl (352,000 pints) per year. According to data published by SIBA in April 2026, on average, members find themselves unable to sell to 62 per cent of the pubs in their local area, due to the beer tie.

It feels to me like there is an obvious solution staring us in the face if we want to see positive growth within the cask beer category and that is to ensure the smallest producers in the category have the same access to support and the market as their largest competitors. Trading conditions meant the vast majority of these producers don’t have access to the resources or customers that would allow them to grow to the point where they’re able to compete with regional breweries on a level playing field.

I agree, wholeheartedly, that we must preserve our real ale heritage, as it is one of the UK’s greatest (if not the greatest) gastronomic contributions to the world. This means that we must look after our larger regional breweries, which are often generationally family-owned. But unless their smallest competitors received the same level of attention and support, then I do worry about the future of cask beer overall. These local, community-focused breweries must be given the opportunity to thrive. Whether that’s by easing business rates, lowering VAT, approving access to market, or simply giving them a speck of attention on social media during a national week of campaigning. Next year, Cask Ale Week needs to ensure that all producers feel involved, and not just an arbitrarily chosen few.