Culture Wars & Cask Ale Week
Cask Ale Week backed by Cask Marque runs until 1st October.
The promotion of cask beer is to be welcomed and Cask Ale Week has some impact in doing so.
It is however far from unproblematic. In fact a Culture War has started over Cask Ale Week 2023.
This focused on publicity on the hard to far right social media site GBNews. Generally appearing on the outlet is not good news or publicity and a quick glance at media headlines on 27th September (not about beer) will underline why.
As Jessica Mason (@drinksmavern) has reported Cask Marque have said they were approached by GBNews. Indeed. I’m approached by them for various reasons from time to time and the response is always NO. They are seeking ‘normal’ content to balance out the range of far rightists, conspiracy theorists and general whackos that are their stock in trade.
We can accept certainly that if the Pub is the Hub we may find people who watch GBNews drinking cask ale in it. Provided they are not actually an organised fascist or displaying racist behaviour I can live with that.
However if the aim is to promote cask beer to a wider and younger audience this is precisely the wrong place to be.
There is a wider issue which is that Cask Ale Week tends to be associated with Bigger and Big Beer rather than the many smaller independent producers of cask who could certainly do with publicity and promotion at the moment.
Cask Ale Week for example is running a promotion with Greene King on Insta. It’s a matter of balance. Both GK and Marstons Carlsberg produce large amounts of cask beer and both at the moment seem to have a view that there might be better profits elsewhere. If they withdraw from cask it will become significantly less available and the gap won’t be filled by smaller independents.
This is the reality of a market capitalist society and on the plus side both Greene King and Marstons are unionised employers.
It does however suggest that in future Cask Ale Week needs to think carefully not just about promoting cask beer to a wider audience but also about promoting a wider range of modern cask beer beyond the Big Beer producers.
Why do the those people like you who identify as leftists continue to promote culture wars? Do you think it makes even the tiniest dent in capitalism? Culture wars are designed to divide us. Don’t play that game!
I’m pointing out that there is a Culture War not promoting it. The post is focused on ways to promote cask beer that specifically avoid such an approach. On the wider issue of Culture Wars these are invariably started by the right. In the UK Labour rarely responds effectively perhaps because as the leader notes, he’s not really political, and doesnt really understand how to