The three craft brewers will offer new-for-old stock to venues when they are allowed to reopen.
The offer is to replace all full and un-breached draught beer kegs which are out of date – and Magic Rock will be doing the same for casks. These will then be replaced with fresh in-date stock in the customer’s next order when they plan to re-open and are ready to trade.
Lion, the Australian parent company of the three businesses, has already credited more than 4,000 of its customers in its home market, which it says represents more than 85,000 unused and capped kegs.
It is too difficult to predict what the uptake in the UK will be, the company says, but currently the breweries collectively have close to 2,000 kegs (equivalent to 176,000 pints) in trade.
‘Pubs and bars are the beating heart of UK communities, especially in regional and suburban areas,’ said Gordon Treanor, MD of the UK arm of the company, Lion Little World Beverages Europe.
‘We’re all too aware of the devastating impact that COVID-19 has had on the industry and hope that our out-of-date keg replacement scheme goes some way to help to get the on-trade back on its feet when the time comes.’
Both Fourpure and Magic Rock are reporting strong online sales since the nation went into lockdown, with Fourpure reporting a whopping 6000% increase in sales from February to April. Meanwhile Magic Rock – which also recently brought its online shop in-house – has seen a 4800% increase in sales versus the same period last year.
