In March 2024, Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC) launched their “Fresh Ale” range of beers. Unfortunately, this range consists of keg versions of three of their cask beers which are going to be sold through handpumps – which are associated with cask-conditioned beers.

Why we are concerned:

• Using a handpump to serve beer that is not cask-conditioned is misleading to consumers and is nothing short of a hijack.
• Hijacking a handpump to serve a keg beer removes a genuine cask product from the bar, reducing choice in different formats of beer for consumers.
• Brewers should be proud of their cask and keg ranges – and shouldn’t have to resort to misleading consumers to sell their products.

What we are doing:

Last week (03 April 2024), we launched our “Handpump Hijack” Campaign by writing to National Trading Standards and Trading Standards Scotland to ask them to investigate, as we believe that these products mislead consumers and are in breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations.

So far, CMBC has three beers in their “Fresh Ale” range. They are Wainwright Gold, Wainwright Amber and Hobgoblin IPA. We have been told that CMBC’s “Fresh Ales” will have “brewery conditioned beer” on the pump clip.

We know of at least one other brewer that has launched a “Fresh Ale” product designed to look like a cask beer at the bar.

We need your help to campaign against these misleading products. At the moment, you can help by doing the following:

• Let us know if you come across “Fresh Ale” in your local. You can do this by using the “Send an email to the CAMRA branch” button at the bottom of the relevant WhatPub venue page to alert your local branch.
• Send us photos of “Fresh Ale” pump clips. We need to find examples! Email any photos to ku.gro.armac@sngiapmac .
• If in doubt, Ask if it’s Cask. We need consumers to make licensees aware of the issue of misleading dispense and explain why you won’t be buying it.

Cask conditioned real ale is pumped to the bar on each pull of the handpump; brewery-conditioned beer served via a fake handpump has little or no movement of the handle, but beer pours continuously under gas pressure. There may be a button or switch below the counter, as shown in the image on the left for the beer on the right.

In this image, the gas tap can be seen just to the left of the beer on the right. This was installed by the pub (unnamed here) without the knowledge of the brewery.

Finally, while we don’t recommend buying “Fresh Ale” at the bar, we still want you to support your local pubs and clubs. If you’re out engaging with licensees and bar staff, please make sure to be polite, constructive and focus on the misleading use of the handpump.