Return to wood is helping to take real ale back to its roots

The Junction in Castleford is spearheading moves to bring traditional real ale back to the communities, having spent £8,000 on wooden beer casks to replace the plastic and steel used by many other businesses in the licensing trade. The pub is a leading light in the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood and claims to be the UK’s only pub selling all of its ales from wood. The renaissance of real ale was seen as a “fashionable middle class” trend, according to Leeds Metropolitan University research. But The Junction claims a return to wood brings “a taste of what our fathers used to drink”.

The pub’s landlord, Neil Midgley, 52, found the demise of heavy industry in Castleford dramatically changed routines, and said: “Real ale was a working man’s drink and then it was taken off them. In a way we are reclaiming it and taking the middle class drinkers with us.”

He invested in 102 wooden casks and sends barrels out to brewers for them to fill.

Professor Karl Spracklen oversaw the Leeds Met research which found real ale had become popular with “middle class urban hipsters” but found that both those and Yorkshire’s “working class real ale hardcore” were coming together to enjoy it.