Members Area

Members Login

Join Us Today

Join CAMRA Today

Some think, others do...

Pub Guide

Opening Times

Issue 130 Spring 2007

Download a copy of Opening Times 130 as a PDF file - 1.0 MB

CAMRA Launch Cyclops

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, recently unveiled a new phase of the Cyclops campaign for licensees and their customers, which aims to demystify the complexities of real ale.

Initially launched by Everards Brewery in March 2006, Cyclops was embraced by CAMRA and launched industry-wide with 14 brewery partners last August, after CAMRA commissioned research revealed that 1 in 3 adults thought a universal scheme which simplified real ale would encourage them to try more real ale.

“We were delighted with the initial 14 breweries that signed up as Cyclops partners in August 2006 as they own pubs and distribute beer across the whole of Britain. This now means Cyclops is a universal real ale tasting scheme that can be developed to play its part in increasing real ale sales nationally.” said Tony Jerome, CAMRA’s Senior Marketing Manager.

“Cyclops uses easy to understand descriptions and distinctive eye, nose and mouth symbols to help inform and educate occasional or new real ale drinkers of what different beers look, smell and taste like before they even try or buy a beer. Cyclops also promotes the style and strength of the beer and gives each real ale a score out of five for how bitter and sweet the beer is.”

Since the initial launch at the Great British Beer Festival last August, Cyclops continues to build on its success with interest from a further 25 breweries who are looking to participate within the next few months.

To help consumers understand how the actual scheme works, and where to look for material, CAMRA has produced a Cyclops information leaflet which it hopes will increase real ale sales for all the breweries participating in Cyclops. The leaflet will be distributed to thousands of pubs across Britain by CAMRA members.

David Bremner, Head of Marketing for Everards and the inspiration behind Cyclops, said: “CAMRA’s new Cyclops leaflet, and more breweries supporting the scheme, will help to increase the consumer awareness of this initiative and lead to more people understanding and drinking real ale.”

Tony Jerome explained “It is important that we now promote Cyclops to licensees and consumers as there is a lot of support from the real ale industry for this initiative and it is vital to keep the impetus of this campaign going. As some of the Cyclops partners Point of Sale material hasn’t been completed yet, we thought it would be important to develop some Cyclops templates that will allow licensees to produce their own Cyclops Point of Sale material such as posters, leaflets and table-toppers to help promote the real ales they have on sale in Cyclops format.”

Licensees can now visit the Cyclops website www.camra.org.uk/cyclops, select the real ale tasting notes and logos for the beers that they have on sale in their pubs and drop them into the template. These can then be printed off and displayed as posters around the pub or used as beer menus on the tables. There is even space on the templates to add beer prices, pub food that matches the beer or history on the brewery.

Jerome continued, “There has been a large number of pubs that have contacted CAMRA in the last year telling us that they would like to promote their real ales but do not know how to. These Word templates that have been created will be accessible to most licensees that own a PC. The templates will allow licensees to create their own Cyclops material and promote their own range of real ales to their customers. Hopefully this will encourage pubs to become more marketing led and help see their real ale sales increase.”

Licensees will also be able to order Cyclops Point of Sale material such as posters, beer mats, tasting cards, leaflets etc direct from breweries that have already produced their material by visiting www.camra.org.uk/cyclops.

Jerome concluded, “Within the next few months we hope to have a directory of hundreds of Cyclops tasting notes on the website for licensees to use and promote to their customers. We also hope that more breweries will be added to the on-line order form so licensees can order professionally designed Cyclops marketing material direct from the Cyclops brewery partners.”

Breweries that would like to sign up to Cyclops, can either visit www.camra.org.uk/cyclops or email tony.jerome@camra.org.uk to request a Cyclops promotional pack.