No it's not an article about The Band but a blog from our National Account Manager & Top Trainer Annabel Smith.

"There has always been an on going debate between the North and South about how cask ale should be served – with a thick creamy head or a looser frothier head? Which is better?"

Palmers Brewery has become the UK’s first small brewery to achieve a new national standard for excellence in the distribution of real ale.

The award of Cask Marque’s Distributor Charter accredits Palmers’ skill in supplying beer to pubs and clubs in tip-top condition.

"The complainant is definitely right and they have a problem." This was the response I received from one of our assessors after he had been asked to go and investigate a customer complaint.

Every year Cask Marque make hundreds of presentations and speeches around the United Kingdom. We have 45 assessors, normally qualified brewers, as well as two National Account Managers on the road who when called upon, talk about Cask Marque and beer quality in general.

So we’ve set you the task of taking part in ‘The World’s Biggest Ale Trail’ on the CaskFinder app and we’re pleased to see so many of you getting involved.

The beginning of the month saw the annual National Cask Ale Week (1 – 9 October) and as always it was jam packed full of great events in pubs across the country. It was particularly exciting for us here at Cask Marque as our CaskFinder app launched ‘The World’s Biggest Ale Trail’.

There are a number of benefits for licensees and pubs in being members of Cask Marque. Amongst many others these include:

Over the last 12 months Robinsons Brewery have invested heavily in a beer quality programme within their 385-pub Tied Estate and part of this commitment is to become a corporate member of Cask Marque.

National Cask Ale Week will run from 1-9 October this year — spanning two weekends — to help pubs promote the event.

This week we are busy preparing for a Board Meeting on Thursday.

As a non-profit making organisation we are in the enviable position of having a hugely experienced Board who provide their time and experience for no fee; just the satisfaction of helping to improve beer quality in the industry.

It was fantastic to hear about the agreement that Punch Taverns and SIBA have just announced. From June Punch tenants will be able to buy through SIBA’s Direct Delivery Scheme increasing the range of local beers they are able to offer their customers.

Eleven brewers have brewed their best stouts to take part in a five-week journey to Russia that has not been completed for 200 years.

We were conducting a pub visit checking the perfect pour of a pint of lager the other day and a licensee asked “why have you docked me marks for touching the beer with the tap, yet you have given me training in the past for dispensing cask ale using a long spout where you have encouraged the spout to be submerged in the beer?”.

We’ve have had some pretty cold weather in the last few weeks and with more allegedly on the way, we thought we would have a look at the effects of the weather on beer...

I went to a meeting the other day, where a large pub chain updated their key suppliers about their strategy and performance.

Let me introduce myself. I am a 9 gallon cask and life began in France. None of my friends are English as production has now stopped in England. You could call us immigrants.

With a name like “Cask” Marque, you would expect that we only deal with cask ale, but over the years we have often audited the quality of lager as well.

What a great advert for Cask Marque!

And no it wasn’t one that we created ourselves; the article below appeared in last week’s Sunday Mail. How it managed to reach the press we do not know but we are pleased it did as it highlights beautifully the value that Cask Marque adds to the industry and ultimately the consumer.

Cask Marque was formed after the quality of cask ale in pubs deteriorated following on from the 1989 Beer Orders Act. When the larger brewers were forced to sell off most of their pubs beer quality suffered.

If you have preconception that a Cask Marque Assessor is a middle aged man with a great big beer belly who spends all his day drinking loads of beer you would be wrong!...