the Fancyapint? visitor's guide - Cask Marque

What is Cask Marque?

Cask Marque is an award made to pubs that excel in cellar management: not only do these pubs serve good beer, but they look after it properly, ensuring you, the customer, gets the best possible pint. The taste and quality of a pint of beer or ale are not just determined by the brewer, they are also significantly affected by how the beer is kept and served. You only get a good pint when all these factors come together perfectly. The Cask Marque is intended to help you find the pubs that do this best.

When you see a pub with a Cask Marque plaque, you can be sure that the beer you are served is brought to you using the highest standards of cellar management. On fancyapint.com, pubs that have a Cask Marque award are marked with the Cask Marque logo in their reviews.

How the scheme works

Pubs that join the scheme are visited unannounced, twice a year, by an independent assessor. In the first year they will be visited twice in the first three months and in subsequent years they will be visited once in the Summer and once in the Winter. The assessor will check all cask ales on sale for temperature, appearance, aroma and taste.

If the pub passes it receives a plaque, a framed certificate and merchandising material to inform its customers of the award and their rights. Customers are encouraged to comment independently on the quality of cask ale in the pub to the Cask Marque organisation.

The Cask Marque award is run by the Cask Marque Award Scheme. The scheme also runs cellar management training courses and offers mystery drinker and cellar audit services. It is operated by an independent body called Cask Marque Trust which is a limited company and a non-profit making organisation and the company is run by a management committee elected by its members. The members, who pay a subscription, include representatives from brewers, retailers, trade bodies and consumer groups.

More info

Visit the Cask Marque web site for information.