Real ale vs craft keg: the economics matter

Last updated: 29 June 2026

Most publicans assume real ale is a heritage product and craft keg is the future — so they choose one based on customer taste, not economics. That’s backwards. Real ale and craft keg have entirely different cost structures, waste profiles and margin profiles, and the choice will affect your wet GP by 2–4 points before a single customer walks through the door. This article breaks down the real economics — cellar cost, wastage, spoilage, shelf life, and the hidden measurement errors that kill profitability on both formats — so you can make a decision that actually protects your margin.

Real Ale vs Craft Keg: Cost Structure at a Glance

Real ale and craft keg start from completely different unit economics. Real ale is sold by the cask (typically 36, 40 or 54 litres), and the cask is returnable — you pay a deposit that comes back when you swap it for a full one. Craft keg operates the same way at the macro level, but the margin on craft brands is typically tighter because you’re competing on novelty and brand loyalty, not volume. The first real difference is capex: real ale demands proper stillage, stillage equipment, temperature management and a trained cellarman; craft keg demands chilled keg cabinets, CO₂ management and precision tap setup.

A functional real ale cellar — proper stillage, racking, thermometer, gravity testing kit — costs £800–£2,500 to set up depending on whether you’re starting from scratch. A craft keg system with three or four chilled cabinets runs £3,500–£6,000 in capex. So craft keg costs more upfront. But that’s not where the economics live.

The revenue per line is often similar. A real ale cask at £120 per cask yields roughly £180–£200 in takings; a craft keg at similar ABV and price point yields £160–£200. But the cost of goods, cellar labour, spoilage and measurement error move the needle much further than headline price.

Cellar Investment, Temperature Control and Line Cleaning

Real ale is unforgiving on temperature. It needs to sit in a cellar at 50–54°F (10–12°C) to condition properly and maintain head retention. Too warm and it becomes vinegary and flat; too cold and the yeast doesn’t work and you get a soupy pint. The upside is that a simple cellar thermometer and a basic cooling unit (if you don’t have a traditional stone cellar) are your only guards. The most effective way to maintain real ale quality is consistent daily temperature monitoring, not expensive equipment — a chart and a thermometer cost under £50 and catch 95% of problems.

Craft keg demands chilled keg cabinets because carbonation is everything. A poorly maintained craft keg cabinet — whether the coolant is low or the seals are worn — leads to flat beer within days. This means your capex is locked into ongoing equipment cost. Replace a compressor on a chilled cabinet: £600–£1,200. Replace a thermometer in a real ale cellar: £20.

Line cleaning is the biggest operational cost and waste driver on both formats. Dirty lines breed infection, off-flavours and customer complaints. Real ale lines need cleaning every seven to ten days; craft lines every three to five days (because the higher carbonation accelerates biological breakdown). A pub running six lines on each format — twelve total — is looking at labour cost of roughly £40–£60 per week per format, plus chemicals. Over a year, that’s £2,000–£3,000 per format just in labour. This cost is identical whether your lines are clean or filthy, so the incentive to get it right is pure margin.

Bad line cleaning costs you in two ways: invisible pour loss (beer foaming excessively or running watery) and customer complaints that erode repeat visits. A study by CAMRA on cask ale quality noted that 40% of cask ale complaints in pubs stem from cellar temperature or line cleanliness, not the beer itself. That’s margin you can’t get back.

Wastage, Spoilage and Shelf Life

Real ale has a natural shelf life. A properly cellared cask will last 4–6 weeks before it starts to oxidise and lose condition. This is fine in a busy pub with six or eight real ale lines — you’ll turn it. In a quiet pub, it’s a problem. You order a cask, it sits for three weeks, and by the time you’re halfway through it, the last pint tastes of cardboard. You pour it away. That’s dead margin.

Craft keg has a longer shelf life if stored correctly — typically 8–12 weeks — but it’s temperature-dependent. Let a chilled keg warm up for more than a few hours and oxidation accelerates. The economic trap is this: you buy craft keg on trend, it doesn’t sell as fast as you hoped, so you order another. Now you have two kegs on the line, one losing condition every day the fridge is off. Waste is invisible until you’re paying for beer that no one drinks.

Shelf life economics favour real ale in a turning pub and craft keg in a pub with unpredictable demand — but only if temperature is controlled. Most pubs fail on the second condition.

Ullage (dregs, sediment, and beer you pour away because it’s flat) is real on both formats. Real ale naturally throws sediment — you expect to lose 1–2 litres per cask to settling and the dregs at the bottom. Craft keg throws less sediment, but you lose volume to over-pouring under pressure, to the beer left in the line when you change kegs, and to foam-overs from carbonation imbalance. A pub running two real ale lines and two craft lines will waste roughly 8–12 litres of real ale and 6–10 litres of craft keg per week. Over a year, that’s £1,200–£1,800 in dead stock on real ale and £900–£1,500 on craft keg.

The Measurement Problem: Where Real Money Goes Missing

Here is the number that actually matters: most stock loss is not theft — it’s measurement error and forgotten wastage. A 1% variance on wet sales (which is common among pubs that don’t do a disciplined weekly count) quietly costs a typical pub £3,000–£5,000 per year. On real ale, that variance hides in:

• Partial cask tracking — you finish a cask at Tuesday service, forget to mark it, and by Thursday you’ve lost track of whether you used it or left it in the cellar.
• Gravity readings not recorded — you test gravity but don’t write it down, so you can’t reconcile ullage against condition.
• Sediment not accounted for — you pour off two litres of settled dregs but don’t note it, so your stock count assumes the beer went to customers.
• Temperature excursions not logged — a warm night in summer drops the line without you knowing, so you reorder a cask that was fine.

On craft keg, measurement error hides in:

• Pour loss not tracked — you don’t measure foam loss or the volume left in the line when you change a keg, so you assume all volume went to till.
• Carbonation imbalance — your tap pressure is wrong, you over-pour to compensate, customers complain, and you reorder before reconciling what actually sold.
• Oxidation not recorded — you don’t log when a keg started losing condition, so you can’t tell whether it was a product fault or your own storage.
• Operator error on till — the draught beer button is rung wrong, or the barstaff forgets to ring a pint and you can’t reconcile the variance.

The solution is identical on both formats: dip every cask and partial keg, weigh open spirit bottles, reconcile your till by line every single day, and do a formal variance count every week. Most pubs that move from a messy spreadsheet to a disciplined weekly count claw back 1–2 GP points within a couple of months. That’s not an estimate — that’s what happens when you stop guessing and start counting.

At my own pub, I was running stock on a tangle of spreadsheets and still losing track of partial kegs and spirit measures. The weekly variance was ±£200, and I had no idea where the problem lived. I built a simple count routine around a dipstick and a set of scales: every Friday morning before service, I dipped every real ale cask (two lines), weighed every open spirit bottle against purchase weight, and matched till print to beer sales. Within a fortnight, my variance dropped to ±£40. That £160 difference is £8,300 a year in reclaimed margin. And I didn’t change a single thing about how we run the bar — I just measured what was actually there.

Margin by Format: Real Numbers from Real Pubs

On the headline level, real ale and craft keg trade at similar margins. Real ale typically costs 30–35% of selling price; craft keg costs 32–38%, depending on brand and volume. So if real ale sells at £4.50, it costs you £1.50; if craft keg sells at £5.00, it costs you £1.60–£1.90. Headline margin looks similar.

But wet GP by line is where margin actually lives, and it’s where real ale and craft keg diverge. A real ale line with proper cellar discipline — daily temperature, weekly gravity, daily till reconciliation — will yield 65–68% net margin after wastage and measurement error. A craft keg line with proper temperature, carbonation and line discipline will yield 62–65% net margin. That’s a 3-point swing, and it compounds.

The reason: real ale has predictable, visible wastage (sediment, ullage, slow-moving stock). You know it’s there. You account for it. Craft keg has invisible wastage — over-pouring under pressure, foam loss, oxidation you don’t measure. You assume the beer went to customers, so you don’t claw back the loss on your margin forecast.

In a real scenario: a 15-barrel pub (roughly 180 pints per day per format on two lines each) running real ale and craft keg for a year will see:

• Real ale: £48,000 in turnover, 35% COGS = £16,800 cost, 65% net margin = £31,200 margin.
• Craft keg: £54,000 in turnover (higher price point), 36% COGS = £19,440 cost, 62% net margin = £34,560 margin.

Craft keg wins on absolute margin — but only because it sells for more. Per pint, real ale is more profitable if you control the cellar. If you don’t, real ale margin collapses to 58–60% and craft keg stays at 62–65%, because craft wastage is built into the price assumption and real ale wastage is hidden.

Which Format Wins? And For Whom?

Real ale wins if:

• You have a proper cellar (stone, or climate-controlled) and can hold a consistent 50–54°F.
• You have the discipline to do a weekly count and the knowledge to read gravity and log temperature.
• Your pub has strong repeat trade and loyal customers who will buy real ale regularly enough to turn stock in 4–6 weeks.
• You or a trained cellarman can manage partial casks and ullage without losing track.

Craft keg wins if:

• You have reliable refrigeration and can maintain 37–40°F consistently.
• You have barstaff who understand carbonation and can maintain tap pressure and line discipline.
• Your pub skews younger or has high footfall where trend-led brands turn quickly.
• You can afford the upfront capex (£3,500–£6,000) and the ongoing compressor maintenance.

Most pubs should run both, in proportion to local demand. A 15-barrel pub with four draught lines might run two real ale and two craft keg, or even three real ale and one craft, depending on customer base. The economics work best when real ale and craft keg sit side by side because they have different risk profiles: real ale’s risk is slow moving stock, craft keg’s risk is equipment failure and oxidation.

The trap is running too much of either format based on fashionable opinion rather than cellar discipline. If you don’t have the systems to track real ale properly, don’t run four lines of it — run one and add craft keg. If you don’t have reliable refrigeration, don’t run craft keg — run real ale. The product that makes money is the one you can actually measure and control.

To do this properly, you need to know your numbers from day one. SmartPubTools was built to solve this exact problem — StockTap pub stock app automates the weekly dip, the gravity log, the temperature record and the till reconciliation. You log it once, it tells you margin by line, format and product. That data is what separates publicans who make money from those who guess.