Cask Ale : Brilliant When It's Fresh... Brutally Expensive When It Isn't.
Updated: 2 days ago
Here’s a hospitality truth that often gets overlooked.
Cask ale can be a great margin driver, or a very elegant way of pouring money down the drain. And the main reason is simple enough: shelf life.
Three Days to Sell It
Once a cask is tapped and vented, you’ve got three days to sell it at its best. After that, the quality starts to slip, and your guests will pick up on it almost instantly.
The numbers look like this:
A 9-gallon cask holds 72 pints
To sell it inside three days, you need 24 pints a day
Sell fewer than that, and the last of the cask goes past its best before it’s finished.
Sales dip because the beer isn’t great. The beer gets worse because sales dip. Before you know it, you’re left with a cask that’s cost you money simply by existing.
See also:
The Fix: Size Your Range to Your Sales
The fix is simple: build a cask range that reflects your actual daily sales.
Often, fewer casks means better quality, happier guests and less heartbreak when you’re clearing the cellar.
Cask ale is fantastic when it’s handled well, but it isn’t forgiving, and it doesn’t reward optimistic ordering.
Keep your range tight. Keep your beer fresh. Your guests, and your accountant, will thank you.
For the full maths on sizing a cask range, see The Real Cost of a Cask Range Wider Than Your Sales and the rest of that series. For everything else that goes wrong between cellar and glass, see the Draught Beer FAQs.
I'm David Holden. I've spent 30 years working across hospitality audit and operations, helping hotels, pubs, restaurants and bars identify where profit is being lost and put practical controls in place to stop it.
