Cask ale continues growth

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news.ma/ViewArticle?R=86487

This could so easily be turned into an anti tie discussion couldn't it?

Mine's a £3.00 pint of fine local Wandle please, from Sam Brooks brewery barely five and a half miles from my pub. (This is bought through my tie's one guest ale provision with a gp of 64.7%). Bespoke, good and local and not available through the tie and more than thirty quid less per cask than the tied ales I stock. Customers say 'great, you've got Wandle, I've asked but can't get it anywhere else locally why is that? They ought to be selling it all around here, I mean I've done the brewery tour and everything, Duncan's a great bloke' And I answer 'Most of the pubs round here are tied and cannot buy Wandle even though they might want it and Sam Brooks can't sell it to them, even though they want to. Have you tried The Bear Free House on Camebrwell Road? They began stocking it after I recommended it to them.'

Against a £3.40 pint of Adnams through the tie with a gp of 55%.

Against a £3.50 pint of the golden glow Heineken with a gp of 44.4%.

Cask ale is the best value by a clear head (?) - to punters and publicans alike - which publican would not push cask ale when it makes them more profit AND they can sell it for less than mainstream keg products?

I stress these gp% are with not a drop spilt, no ullage and nothing ever ever going wrong ever. The true gp achieved is 2% lower across the range of draught.

Poisonous Monkeys I say.