The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has written to the secretary of state for business as part of its campaign to raise awareness of misleading consumer practices.
In the letter, the campaign explains that National Trading Standards has said it doesn’t have the powers to investigate the ‘Fresh Ale’ concept launched by Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company.
This involves serving filtered and kegged beer through handpumps that are usually used exclusively for cask-conditioned beer.
National Trading Standards reported that it is unable to investigate Fresh Ale at a national level, despite its predecessor agency, the Local Authority Co-ordinating Body on Trading Standards (LACOTS), carrying out a similar investigation in the 1980s.
The investigation by LACOTS found that using handpumps to dispense kegged beer was misleading to consumers, and it issued advice to all local Trading Standards officers.
The campaign has also submitted a formal complaint to West Northamptonshire Trading Standards, which is believed to have a ‘primary authority’ agreement in place with Carlsberg Ltd, the global brewer forming just over half of the CMBC joint venture.
“The impact of this perniciously misleading form of dispense will affect the reputation and availability of cask-conditioned beer in all pubs and social clubs — an integral part of British heritage and pub culture,” said Gillian Hough, CAMRA’s real ale, cider, and perry campaigns director.
“It is a self-evident fact that consumers should be as fully informed as possible about the product they are buying at the point of dispense. CAMRA is deeply concerned because, for beer drinkers, the use of a handpump to dispense beer is an indication that the beer is cask-conditioned, which these products are not.”
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