Cyclops Beer has accredited 100 keg and canned beers, as well as over 2,000 cask and bottled beers from 400 breweries around the UK. The number of accredited breweries has increased by 25% in the last 12 months.

The accreditation scheme was originally set up for cask beer and started accrediting keg beers and lagers in 2014 in response to a growing demand from breweries who wanted to use Cyclops tasting notes for all their beers.

The Cyclops scheme helps consumers to navigate their way around the increasing choice of beer now available to them. The notes are used most effectively at the point of purchase, in pubs on pump clips and blackboards, in the off-trade on shelf edges or on bottles and cans.

To date the Cyclops Beer scheme has produced 2,371 tasting notes for 400 breweries, each showing at a glance what a beer looks, smells and tastes like. The simplicity of the tasting notes is the key to their success. They also show how bitter and sweet each beer is using a simple 5-point system.

Stephen Gould, Managing Director of Everards Brewery and Chairman of the Cyclops Beer Board, said: “We’ve now accredited 400 breweries which is around one quarter of all breweries now operating in the UK; it’s a massive show of confidence in the Cyclops scheme by the beer sector.

“As well as being used in pubs and at beer festivals, the Cyclops tasting notes are used by wholesalers and as a training tool by breweries and pub companies. The demand for this to be extended to keg beers meant that it is now available to all British brewers.”

Cyclops-accredited keg beers range from brews from established breweries, such as Robinsons and Arkells, to the growing number of new breweries, including Clouded Minds, established two years ago by an Italian brewer and a British engineer, which has had eight keg beers accredited and Boss Brewing of Swansea which has five beers available in both cask and keg.

Simple descriptions, such as the kind that Cyclops provides, help consumers to choose beers that they will enjoy, whether they are served from a cask, keg, bottle or can. Cask drinkers have been using Cyclops tasting notes since 2006 and these notes have recently been recommended by the 2015-2016 Cask Report which recommends them to pubs to help them promote beer to their customers.

You can find all the Cyclops beer tasting notes at www.cyclopsbeer.co.uk and on the CaskFinder app.