Punch supports over 400 beer festivals

As CAMRA’s Great British Beer festival approaches, Punch can reveal that it has helped its Partners host 400 beer festivals over the last year.

As one of the leading pub companies with an estate of around 4,200 pubs, Punch Taverns offers a range of support to drive footfall and beer volumes in its pubs. This includes in-house training course and NVQs as well as access to award-winning and locally-brewed ales through its Finest Cask scheme and SIBA DDS.

Punch Partners benefit from point-of-sale and a Finest Cask website (www.finestcask.co.uk) which was launched in July to allow consumers to view tasting notes and details of upcoming beer festivals.

“We are very passionate about cask ale and have over 1,100 cask-marque accredited pubs. We work to promote, improve and celebrate an impressive range of beers in our  pubs, working directly with our Partners to drive sales,” said Punch Taverns’ Category Manager Stephen Martin.

“We actively encourage our Partners to run their own beer festivals and 400 Punch pubs did so with our support last year.”

Punch Partnership Development Managers use beer festival toolkits to introduce publicans to a range of suppliers, as well as supplying point of sale and pub-specific branded glassware. The marketing disc also provides printable point of sale and advice on beer quality.

“The marketing discs and the Finest Cask website represent additional initiatives to help us build strong working relationships with our partners and to maximise the value we add to their businesses,” he continued.

“We believe that big events like CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival can only increase awareness of the nation’s love of beer and help encourage more consumers to recognise cask ale as one of the unique selling points of the Great British pub.

“Our beer festival support demonstrates Punch Taverns’ continued commitment to work closely with our Partners. We are really pleased with the amount of festivals taking place across Punch pubs and expect these to increase in 2014.”

Punch is a leading pub company in the UK with approximately 4,200 leased and tenanted pubs nationwide.