The Future of CAMRA

From the perspective of the occasional visitor, an organization that doesn't adapt to and grow beyond the changes it helped to create will become ossified and die.

 

Hard to say. Maybe it's all part of a cycle. Like everything, it takes a new generation to change things. The real ale movement doesn't seem to be much different than the craft brew movement in the states, but comparatively, the craft brew movement is very young. 15-20 years down the road, when every craft brewery offers nothing but 17 varieties of barrel-aged RIS or a IIIIIIPA, innovation stops and the market stagnates; however, I think there are major cultural differences which will keep that from happening. If this doesn't make sense, I blame the lack of sleep and too much home brew. To bed I go!

 

Dream on, CAMRA is here to stay despite the efforts of some to disparage and denigrate European brewing at every opportunity.

 

Luckily decent brewers are springing up all over the shop and expanding despite camra (i.e. Tiny Rebel recently doubled in size), showing they do have less influence that you'd think. They seem to be adapting a bit though, a few ones I've seen at camra festivals haven't been "real ale" in that they're not brewed "using traditional ingredients" (i.e. coffee stouts etc). All that's needed now is for them to realise that saying all keg served beers are bad and should be got rid of is a pretty ill-informed and stupid thing to say.

 

What did they do to Cromarty?

Also have any of their tax campaigns actually worked?

 

i think camra is outdated and toothless, the local branches in my area (west yorkshire) seem to be only interested in putting on their own beer festivals. which i abhor, they don't seem to want to take on the pubco companies have have almost destroyed local pubs with their get rich quick greedy attitude to landlords lives. craft keg is the antichrist, however, when challenged as to what the problem is, the answer is well its keg. but its not KEG as we knew it years ago, its a brand new style of brewing that produces a superb beer and is quite a difficult product to get right

 

For those that don't believe in CAMRA's relevance in this day and age, does that mean Brewdog are winning or have won the fight?

 

No it means breweries who aren't attention *****s have.

 

Tiny Rebel's first ever festival was a CAMRA festival and it was where they first made any kind of a name, they also sell more beer in Cask and prioritise cask over everything else, this is why they have not bottled since the Autumn.
Their keg products are not to my knowledge seen outside of the brewery open days.
I know this does not directly relate to CAMRA but TR are hardly at the vanguard of a revolution, real ale is their bread and butter.

 

CAMRA is a group with a particular aim, an aim that is dictated by it's membership, people who don't like it should either join up and influence policy or set up a new organisation.

I for one am grateful for all the hardwork CAMRA put before I was born so that I can experience the unique taste of real ale.

 

Good point about the festivals. Forgot about the festivals. With Tiny Rebel I just mentioned them as they opened recently, brew a lot of keg/non traditional ales, and are really successful. I saw Hadouken on keg in London in December.

That's pretty silly. If I was a Camra festival organiser I would have just said meh, it's a good beer, and it's served from a cask, what's the problem? Sounds like a rule that would have been relevant in the 70s/80s with mass keg producers trying to infiltrate the cask scene, in the same way InBev today make "craft" beers.

 

I have a fairly limited and possibly ignorant view on the subject but here is my opinion none the less. As someone who is young and focusing on making a career in the beer industry (let alone stateside), I have been infatuated with CAMRA since I read about them years ago. A visit to London really influenced how I view beer in every aspect and I have no doubt CAMRA had a big part of it. Now if I had to deal with it everyday and not just to gain perspective I very well could feel differently.

 

I guess I don't see them as good example as quite a lot of their output is cask, especially in the local area, at times it seems like it's easier to get hold of TR in London than here. Plus TR have never entered into any real keg v cask or CAMRA debates, probably because they don't have a problem with cask and sell a lot of it. They can't sell keg in Cardiff and Newport, nowhere around here sells "craft keg" as you know, even Cardiff's biggest TR proponent with a house beer made by TR does not sell their keg products as they are tied to ABInbev!

I don't think CAMRA have a problem with non-traditional beer outside of the cask issue, i.e Ingredients, ageing etc

 

I guess I relate Camra more to boring cask stuff that they usually champion most (i.e. the kind of breweries with beer rosters that at best read like - bitter, bitter, bitter, dark bitter, golden ale, golden ale, pale ale, mild, watery stout) than to more interesting stuff. I'm not championing keg either, because crappy keg is worse than crappy cask. Also not saying bitters and golden ales are boring, just than there are so many that are bland and could easily be copies of a hundred others. I love good ones, Rhymney, Tomos Watkin, Purple Moose etc.

I do think something like Camrgb makes more sense though, with the attitude of not caring how a beer is made, who made it, or what it got dispense from, all that matters is how good it is as a beer. Though to be honest I do think it's great that stuff like Dark Star, Tiny Rebel, and Oakham is getting adopted by Camra for their festivals, because it shows they aren't completely steadfast in their love of bitters and golden ales.

Plus if we had camrgb no arguments would be caused, unless groups of people really believed they should campaign for bad beer!