Handpump Hijack

In March 2024, Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC) launched ‘Fresh Ale’. These are brewery-conditioned versions of their cask range, which are then kegged and served through cask handpumps. They positioned this as a way to ‘revive’ cask by giving it a longer shelf life. Their announcement can be found here. 

There are two main implications for cask beer and consumers that CAMRA opposes. Most noticeably the dispense method is misleading, but this also creates a more general threat to cask as the beer is not cask-conditioned, but the use of ‘Fresh Ale’ marketing seeks to imply that it is. 

We anticipate that more breweries may release ‘Fresh Ale’ – and believe that the practice of filling casks with brewery conditioned beer has become more common in recent years, if little known or actively advertised as such. 

CAMRA has a long-standing policy on the issue of using a handpump to dispense non-cask beers – which entered CAMRA policy as ‘misleading dispense’ in 1988/89.  

After CAMRA-coordinated complaints to Trading Standards around the country, Local Authority Co-ordinating Body on Trading Standards (LACOTS) started an enquiry in relation to potentially misleading methods of dispensing beer. CAMRA made a submission to the enquiry in November 1988.  

Although no legislation resulted, LACOTS agreed that the use of a handpump to serve keg beers was misleading and this advice was passed to all local Trading Standards departments. As a result, the use of a handpump as the point of sale on keg beers virtually disappeared within a few months making this a major campaigning success.