Punch, one of the UK’s biggest pub groups with around 3,300 leased and tenanted pubs, have recently made accreditation by Cyclops Beer a condition of their Finest Cask Programme.

Finest Cask is a scheme exclusively available to Punch Publicans, with over 800 Punch Publicans currently registered. As part of Punch’s continued commitment to provide these publicans with a wide selection of beers and cask ales, Punch offer them 130 cask ales through its core supply as well as an additional 100 over the year through Finest Cask Rotations. All these cask ales must now be accredited by Cyclops Beer in order to become eligible for selection. Cyclops is the independent beer accreditation scheme which has tested thousands of beers and provides tasting notes which describe, in simple terms, what each beer looks, smells and tastes like as well as its ABV and beer style.

Punch have been using Cyclops for many years and has found that brands on Finest Cask which have been accredited by Cyclops outperform the others by 6.9%.

There are two reasons for this according to Stephen Martin, Category Manager for Punch:

“It’s easy for licensees to find a range of beers to stock using Cyclops plus our Telesales find it easier to sell in ales using the Cyclops tasting notes as the tasting notes are simple and easy to understand.

“At Punch we’ve decided that all the ales need to have Cyclops descriptions if they want to be included in Finest Cask. This means that brewers must get their beers accredited in order to tender for Finest Cask in the future.

“We’d also like to see some of the descriptions used at point of sale to help drinkers know more about what they’re drinking in terms of beer style and colour. Cyclops is the best scheme out there to help customers as it is independent and consistent.”

Stephen Gould of Everards, speaking on behalf of the Cyclops Beer Board said:

“It is good news to hear from Punch that Cyclops has a positive effect on beer sales. It is important that the Cyclops Board shares these good news stories with pubs and breweries to demonstrate the value of Cyclops. We will continue to develop the scheme and encourage the beer and pub trade to use Cyclops to benefit their businesses and hopefully sell more beer just as Punch have reported.”