Camra plans real ale ‘taste guide’ to win over young

The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) is launching a nationwide campaign to promote its Cyclops scheme, which is aimed at "demystifying" real ale and attracting younger drinkers.

The campaign, through point of sale, posters and online, will promote Cyclops, a scheme that involves the use of an information guide on packaging to tell buyers what an individual beer should look like, smell like and how bitter and sweet it is, along the lines of the sweet/dry scale used on many wine bottles.

Camra senior marketing manager Tony Jerome says: "The Cyclops campaign has been created to help and educate pub goers interested in giving real ale a try for the first time, or who have only tried a few pints and want to find out more." There are more than 2,500 British beers from over 600 breweries, and "no one can taste them all," says Jerome – hence the need for an industry-standard tasting guide.

However, he adds that Camra wants to avoid turning potential real ale drinkers off by using the sort of deliberately obtuse language usually associated with wine connoisseurs. Instead, Cyclops uses plain English and simple graphics.

Cyclops was launched last summer, and 15 brewers have already signed up, with another 30 expressing interest. Jerome says the new campaign is aimed at spreading the message to a much wider audience, beyond the "already converted".

The organisation – credited with saving Britain’s beer heritage and rekindling interest in traditional beers – was considering running its first above-the-line advertising to support Cyclops, and was in talks with Mustoes and Dave the Agency. However, Camra has now chosen to focus on below the line.