Marston’s first introduced the Retail Agreement to Marston’s  Pub Company, its tenanted and leased estate, in 2009 to address the challenging market conditions it faced in its tenanted estate. In particular the Agreement was aimed at wet-led community pubs and fair play to Marston’s because they started first with their basket cases.

Under the Agreement Marston’s Pub Company has responsibility for the retail offer, including drinks brands sold, food menus and retail standards. The “franchisee” earns a percentage of revenue and is responsible for staff costs. Marston’s Pub Company is responsible for all other costs. (more…)

Sharp’s Brewery has certainly come a long way in 16+ years. Started up as a hobby by local businessman Bill Sharp; the Rock, Cornwall – based brewery has moved from micro to regional brewer in less than a decade. 

It now brews 75,000 barrels of cask beer a year. It is one of the fastest-growing breweries in Britain and has long left behind the status of a micro. It is, indisputably, a regional company, until recently vying with St Austell Brewery, as the biggest producer of cask ale in Cornwall. Sharp’s is still on the same industrial estate it started on, but now occupies most of it, not just one small building.

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I wrote a post the other week entitled - If you want to predict the future, simply look at the past, about Belhaven and Greene King. I believe that same maxim may apply here but for different reasons.

In recent days Robert Cain’s Auditors have warned that this famous Liverpool brewery again faces material uncertainty over its finances which may threaten its survival, but its owners remain “optimistic” they can again turn things around. I think we have heard that before.

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It was earlier this year, March to be exact, that Marston’s announced the launch of FastCask, which they said would ‘revolutionise the availability and quality of cask ale’. And then in May nine-pint take-home FastCasks of Marston’s Pedigree, Wychwood’s Hobgoblin and Marston’s EPA were announced.

Without going into too much detail, at the heart of FastCask are yeast-infused beads with an external permeable coating. The beads are tiny with approximately 100-150 added per firkin. They are said to act like sponges, drawing beer through to create the secondary cask fermentation but do not dissolve into the beer.  The cask’s hop filter prevents the beads from subsequently being dispensed.

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