They kick off in 1980. When "traditional" keg outsold Lager almost two to one. And cask by more than that.
Apologies for the incompleteness of the figures. The Statistical Handbook hasn't always broken sales into the same categories. Nor included the same things in their tables. Hence the big holes.
Cask held steady in the early 1980s, went into a slow decline, before recovering in the second half of the 1990s. And its been pretty much downhill all the way since then. The 2024 figure of marginally over 5% is pretty worrying.
Though, in comparison to the fortunes of keg and nitrokeg, cask has come off pretty well. "Traditional" keg dropping from 39% in 1980 to a dismal 1.6% in 2024. Cask outselling keg beer three to one would have sounded good in the 1990s. Now, it just means treble bugger all.
Nitrokeg has fared a little better, though it's still seen a 75% drop in sales since 2000.
Stout is the only type to see growth over the period 2000 to 2024. And only by a small amount. Even draught Lager couldn't dodge the downwards trend. Though its share of the draught market increased from 53% in 2000 to 64% in 2024.
Cask defeated keg. A sort of Pyrrhic victory, really, given the current tiny sales of both.
| UK draught beer sales by type (%) | ||||||
| Year | Cask condi-tioned ale / stout | Nitro-keg ale | Tradit-ional keg ale | Stout | Lager | Total |
| 1980 | 16.8 | 39.0 | 23.0 | 78.8 | ||
| 1981 | 17 | |||||
| 1982 | 17 | |||||
| 1983 | 17 | |||||
| 1984 | 17 | |||||
| 1985 | 17 | |||||
| 1986 | 16 | |||||
| 1987 | 15 | |||||
| 1988 | 15 | |||||
| 1989 | 15 | |||||
| 1990 | 14.3 | 24.4 | 32.5 | 71.2 | ||
| 1991 | 15 | |||||
| 1992 | 16 | |||||
| 1993 | 17 | |||||
| 1994 | 17 | |||||
| 1995 | 16 | |||||
| 1996 | 14 | |||||
| 1997 | 12 | |||||
| 1998 | 11 | |||||
| 1999 | 11 | |||||
| 2000 | 9.4 | 10.5 | 5.0 | 4.4 | 33.0 | 62.3 |
| 2001 | 8.8 | 10.0 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 33.1 | 60.6 |
| 2002 | 8.3 | 9.4 | 4.0 | 4.2 | 32.8 | 58.6 |
| 2003 | 7.8 | 8.9 | 3.5 | 3.9 | 33.2 | 57.1 |
| 2004 | 7.4 | 8.5 | 3.1 | 3.8 | 33.2 | 56.0 |
| 2005 | 7.2 | 8.2 | 2.7 | 3.8 | 33.4 | 55.2 |
| 2006 | 7.0 | 7.7 | 2.3 | 3.7 | 33.0 | 53.7 |
| 2007 | 7.1 | 7.5 | 2.0 | 3.7 | 32.1 | 52.4 |
| 2008 | 7.2 | 7.0 | 1.8 | 3.7 | 30.5 | 50.2 |
| 2009 | 7.5 | 6.9 | 1.6 | 3.6 | 30.3 | 49.9 |
| 2010 | 7.3 | 6.4 | 1.4 | 3.5 | 29.6 | 48.2 |
| 2011 | 8.0 | 5.7 | 1.5 | 3.3 | 29.3 | 47.8 |
| 2012 | 8.1 | 5.4 | 1.6 | 3.2 | 29.4 | 47.7 |
| 2013 | 8.2 | 5.0 | 1.5 | 3.1 | 28.7 | 46.4 |
| 2014 | 8.2 | 4.7 | 2.0 | 3.1 | 28.5 | 45.8 |
| 2015 | 8.3 | 4.7 | 1.8 | 3.0 | 27.8 | 45.1 |
| 2016 | 8.1 | 4.4 | 1.3 | 3.0 | 27.9 | 44.7 |
| 2017 | 7.6 | 4.1 | 1.4 | 3.0 | 27.2 | 43.4 |
| 2018 | 7.0 | 3.8 | 1.5 | 2.9 | 26.7 | 41.9 |
| 2019 | 6.6 | 3.4 | 1.6 | 3.0 | 26.4 | 41.1 |
| 2020 | 3.5 | 1.6 | 0.6 | 1.4 | 13.4 | 20.4 |
| 2021 | 4.3 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 2.0 | 18.4 | 27.7 |
| 2022 | 5.6 | 2.9 | 1.3 | 3.2 | 25.0 | 38.0 |
| 2023 | 5.5 | 2.7 | 1.4 | 3.8 | 25.0 | 38.5 |
| 2024 | 5.1 | 2.5 | 1.6 | 4.6 | 24.7 | 38.6 |
| Source: | ||||||
| BBPA Statistical Handbook 2025, page 13. | ||||||
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1 comment:
When I started drinking in pubs in the late eighties, most people I think saw themselves as a bitter, lager, cider or stout (mostly Guinness) drinker, with the form of dispense secondary. I drank keg bitter in keg pubs and cask bitter in cask ones, and bottled and canned bitter at home. I know see myself as a cask drinker, pretty much irrespective of style.
In the mid nineties when nitrokeg "smooth" bitter came out, it was seen by me and my mates as something new and different to drink (much as younger drinkers in Ireland in the sixties saw nitrokeg Draught Guinness). It was promoted as being closer to cask than normal keg bitter, and the canned version with a widget in it as closer to the draught beer you got in the pub.
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