More SIBA members to apply for Cyclops accreditation
The Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) is expecting a sharp increase in members applying for subsidised Cyclops accreditation following Enterprise Inns’ move to make this a service requirement for all beers bought through SIBA’s Direct Delivery System (DDS), from February next year.
Around 80 members have already had their beers “Cyclops-ed”, taking advantage of the generous subsidy offered by SIBA. Currently, SIBA funds 60% of the Cyclops accreditation fee, meaning that brewers have to find just £100 to put up to five of their beers through the process.
Nick Stafford, managing director of SIBA DDS, says, “Cyclops is becoming more widely-used as a staff training and consumer education tool, and this latest endorsement from Enterprise Inns clearly makes accreditation more compelling to all members of SIBA DDS. We expect more brewers will see the subsidised fee as a small price to pay for the distribution gains that having Cyclops- accredited beers can bring.”
At Enterprise Inns, head of drinks category Grant Simpson adds, “Cyclops accreditation is a way for us to offer greater quality assurance for SIBA beers, to both retailers and customers. We’ve increased the number of SIBA members’ beers available our pubs, in response to growing consumer demand, and we now want to ensure they can be served and retailed in the best possible way. Cyclops, with its consistent and easy to understand taste descriptors for beer, can help us to achieve this.”
Getting all SIBA DDS members ‘Cyclops-ed’ by February will require accreditation of around 900 beers, something that the Cyclops team are confident of achieving comfortably.
The Cyclops subsidy is one of SIBA’s ‘Access to Market’ initiatives, which help members to bring their beers to market. Earlier this year, it launched SIBA Technical Services, which enables its members to offer a more tailored dispense service to its pub customers. The first ‘Access to Market’ scheme, DDS, has helped countless smaller brewers extend distribution of their beers. Sales of DDS-supplied beers grew by 11.9% in the 12 months to end June 2009, compared to the same period last year. Over the same period, the number of pubs buying beers through DDS grew by 5.8%, and sales per pub of DDS-supplied ales were up by 5.7%.
Cyclops was developed by a group of industry bodies as a way of demystifying beer, through simple, objective, industry-standard taste descriptions that are easily understood by bar staff and consumers. The Cyclops scheme, initially devised by Everards, is now operated as an industry-wide initiative by Everards, SIBA, Cask Marque and CAMRA. For more information, visit www.cyclopsbeer.co.uk/
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