Supermarkets record ale sales

Major supermarket groups were stunned by the demand for bottled ale in the run-up to Chistmas, a report in the Times newspaper by Ian King says. On the Wednesday and Thursday before the holiday, Tesco sold half a million bottles -- a 65 per cent increase on the same period in 2010. A spokesman for Teco said demand from younger shoppers in particular had grown.

Kathryn Clarke, the supermarket's ale buyer, said the factors driving sales included growing interest in ale as a food accompaniment and its growing popularity and availability in pubs. She added: "The general quality of ales has improved so much that they offer drinkers with a cultured palate the same degree of sophistication and regional taste as a fine wine."

Rivals have also noticed the trend. Waitrose said that strong ale sales in the autumn had continued in the run-up to Christmas, with sales ahead of targets, partly driven by shoppers opting for local premium ales as gifts. Local ales have also boosted the appeal of ales at Morrisons, where sales were up 15 per cent in the year to September, and are said to remain strong. Sainsbury's even launched a Christmas Celebration Ale with flavours of Christmas pudding, spices and raisins to capitalise on the trend.

The Times quoted Roger Protz, editor of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide, who said he was not surprised to learn of the strong sales Tesco had enjoyed. "All the supermarkets now stock far more varieties of ale than they did a year ago. What has struck me, in particular, has been the number of young people that one sees at checkouts who have bottles of ale in their baskets when, a year ago, it would have been Stella or Carlsberg.

"I think people have got bored with 'drinking the advertising', as the marketing men put it. They got bored with the big mass brands and think why can they have six pints of fizzy lager when they can have three bottles of beer with real flavour."

He added: "There is a sea change going on which, I think, is a lot to do with the green generation. People want to know the beer they are drinking contains proper hops and barley, rather than ingeredients that have been flow in from around the world."