Following its inaugural charity beer festival last weekend, which raised £300 for Help for Heroes, the management of the Flying Duck pub in Ilkley is celebrating more good news this week after scooping a prestigious award for the quality of its beer.

The award is based upon an independent inspection from the real ale auditors, Cask Marque.

General manager Stewart Ross and pub manager Nick McNeice, who run the pub on Church Street, passed a rigorous inspection with flying colours to score a maximum 100 per cent from a Cask Marque assessor, who is a qualified brewer with extensive senior level experience of working in the cask ale industry.

Stewart said: “This award is a great endorsement for us. A lot of our customers visit the pub especially for the wide range of cask ales that we serve and it is really gratifying to know that we are getting the quality just right.”

The pub is now part of the World’s Biggest Ale Trail, where users of the CaskFinder app visit Cask Marque accredited pubs to sample real ales. While there, they are encouraged to scan the QR code on the pub’s certificate to confirm their visit and climb the Ale Trail leader board and receive prizes. Currently, the app is used more than 70,000 times per month.

Cask Marque director Paul Nunny said: “Stewart, Nick and their team should feel justifiably proud of this excellent achievement, which not only recognises the effort they put into serving the perfect pint but also acts as an independent guarantee of quality for their customers.

“All too often, publicans don’t appreciate the care and attention cask beers require and then run the risk of losing custom by serving pints that are below par.”

Nick added: “We’re looking forward to welcoming the Ale Trailers into the pub to try our ale, as well as continuing to serve great pints to our existing customer base who all appeared to enjoy last weekend’s beer festival where they sampled more than 30 beers from Cumbrian breweries.

“We would like to say a big thank you to all of them for their ongoing support and their tremendous generosity in giving so much to such a worthwhile charity. The monies collected in tins provided on the bars along with the matching donation from the pub surpassed all our expectations and we are delighted to have done our bit for Help for Heroes.” The Flying Duck is hosting its second Meet The Brewer night next Wednesday, April 9 at 8pm where York’s Hop Studio will be giving a beer sampling presentation. Tickets are available from the bar.