CAMRA Opinion

Always been a real pub lover, and living in Ireland there are some amazing pubs to be visited.

As for the whole CAMRA opinion, I don't really have a preference to what my beer is dispensed out of so don't think I will be joining anytime soon. But I will say that they have helped massively in keeping the Belfast beer scene alive, running their yearly beer festival. Basically for me what makes the beer taste better and that is subjective in itself. Example being I have had Jaipur on cask and on keg and it would be keg every time. I thought the cask version was grim, no spark to the beer. But I have had some awesome beers on cask at the Belfast Beer Festival run by CAMRA. What I don't get is the militant this way or the highway attitude from either side. A recent new beer festival in Belfast was set up, all kegged beer, none of the CAMRA crowd would help out. Which is their choice, it was more the condescending way in which they alerted people as to why they wouldn't help.

"What, you want ME to help serve kegged beer? Did you really ask that? Scoff Scoff"

A simple no would have done. Anyway, whatever floats your boat.

 

I was more making a general comment about how there seemed to be more lamenting that people new to 'craft' beer are more interested in new school IPAs than traditional cask-served beers. It's helpful that there is an organization dedicated to preserving the tradition. So long as there is a market, there will be cask beer.

 

Agree with absolutely everything you say here

 

I know a few CAMRA members who do work at independent beer festivals, but it is their choice, it is a little arrogant of independent festivals to think that CAMRA members would automatically volunteer to work at their festival. CAMRA members volunteer to work at festivals for a variety of reasons and they are directly contributing to the campaign by doing so. Independent festivals are run on a commercial basis and bar staff should be paid.

 

So riddle me this, how does one know when an invitation is based on an arrogant assumption and when it is based on being courteous to people who have knowledge and experience rather than ignoring their expertise?

 

Just a couple of points. The beer festival in question was not a commercial venture and was entirely staffed by volunteers. It was done by beer loving folk who wanted to promote local breweries and good beer. Also there was no thought or expectation that CAMRA members should help at all, it was merely a request to some folk in the local beer scene. Some of whom politely declined, some not so politely and others who volunteered. My issue was with how those who declined, not so politely, did so. Anyway, back on topic. CAMRA and all that jazz.

 

unfortunately there has been far too much antagonism in the craft v CAMRA relations over the past few years. Crafterati can't see why CAMRA doesn't embrace keg beer and CAMRA can't understand why the crafterati think they should. Both sides have displayed intransigence to varying degrees which isn't helped by the constant carping from both sides, frankly I'm sick of it. I've been a CAMRA member for well over 30 years and volunteered at countless CAMRA Festivals, I've also worked at Independent Festivals to help friends. But you'll generally find that volunteers at CAMRA Festivals have made their investment in Real Ale and not in Kegged beers, some even eschew bottled beers unless bottle conditioned. So I doubt that an approach by a craft beer festival for volunteers from a local CAMRA branch would meet with much success.

 

I will add one thing as I was corrected by a friend, some CAMRA members did volunteer. Didn't know they where CAMRA members. So apologies for my sweeping statement that none volunteered

 

Much of which I continue to find surprising, since, as I mentioned above, it seems to me to clearly be the case that they both have the same "enemy" out to do them in.

 

Let my membership lapse this year because I got sick of all the the sexist nonsense. Quite a few people I know have done the same. My local lot were generally pretty cool from what I saw of them but nationally they did my head in. Stuff like Kegbuster showed just how out of touch they are with the modern world.

The quarterly magazine is really good though.

 

I assume you refuse to drink any beer from Breweries that use sexist labels or rely on euphemisms and double entendres to sell beer

 

That ridiculous flyer CAMRA's youth wing produced to promote cask beer at universities was the final nail in the coffin for me. Totally unacceptable in this day and age.

 

Just to bolster my CAMRA credentials, I spent yesterday in Nottingham at the rather fine Canal House judging at SIBA North Keg Beer Competition. And it was good.

 

Can you bolster it further by getting this year's international list finalised for GBBF!

 

I have it in several different Excel spreadsheets which I don't have time to strip down to the essentials. I have been advised it should be on the GBBF website some time next week. Safe to say 100+ USA cask beers, 450+ cases of USA beer, 20 Italian draught, 20 Czech draught, 20 German draught, 150 Belgian & Dutch beers. That's a lot of QC work before we open!!

 

How can one argue with such a selection!?

 

Conversational jump ball: Are crafty newPAs and such as big a threat to the future of cask than macrolagers were? (And is wishful thinking that I didn't say 'are'?) ... I figure how one answers that question might indicate one's stance on CAMRA.

 

I would say no because lots of beers are great on cask and the majority of new breweries still primarilyproduce cask beers. It's only a few that don't bother with it. While there's no doubt some beers are not suited to it, I can't see those styles being so dominant in coming years to affect casks continuing rise

 

I don't see it as a threat, most 'craft' IPAs have a higher abv when compared to standard cask beers, and as such are hardly suited to what we understand as session beers. The majority of drinking in Pubs, not Beer Bars, is still standard strength bitters, whether they be shitty smoothflow, crappy carling or, preferably, good honest Real Ale. When I'm drinking in a Pub I drink Pints, when in a Beer Bar I drink halves.

 

Lots of people like "new"pa, cask ale and macro lager. It's not really a competition. They've all happily coincided for years now. None seems to be threatening anything other than growths in popularity, bar macro lager which seems to be steady.