I’ve created a poll in the sidebar about CAMRA Revitalisation, which I have written about extensively over the past few months. However, knowing that people reading my blog on a mobile won’t see it, I thought it merited a post in its own right.
Edit: I have now closed the poll and removed the link. I won’t remove the post entirely as there are some interesting comments.
"Embrace" can cover a multitude of sins, but I've voted yes on the assumption that it's in the sense that the Revitalization proposals are actually talking about, ie admitting that they exist and sometimes saying nice things about them or selling a few of them at beer festivals but not treating them equally with Real Ale or making a point of "campaigning for" them.
ReplyDeleteAlas, poor CAMRA! I knew him, Horatio'?
ReplyDeleteI voted No as the whole point of CAMRA is real ale. I make the stuff too in my microbrewery so I am biased. Cambridge beer festival coming up. Will have two strong beers there and traditional lager (as per pre carbonation) which is fermenting now! Even that is 6% ABV.
ReplyDeleteA simple no from me. It's all about what's Real, and while CAMRA should be acknowledging that there are some great brewery-conditioned, pressurised beers, the campaign should stick to, well, campaigning to promote the real thing.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that pretty much what the Revitalization proposals say, though? It's certainly how I read them.
DeleteI don't think so. Embracing something is far more than just acknowledging its existence.
DeleteChange or die !
ReplyDeleteOh, they need to change alright. Just not what they do, but how.
DeleteCake or death!
DeleteUnusually I'm with the lager lout on this one.
ReplyDeleteBurying your head in the sand and hoping craft beer will go away is not a good option for the future prosperity of CAMRA.
But the whole debate rests on a fundamental divergence of opinion on what CAMRA is supposed to be about - is it standing up for a specific British tradition, or is it an organisation for lovers of all good beer? If the former, then "moving with the times" is the last thing it should be doing.
DeleteI'm not sure why it can't do both.
ReplyDeleteCAMRA was set up as a protest against poor beer being concentrated in the hands of a small number of brewing conglomerates.
The battle has been won many years ago.
The problem now is that CAMRA has almost become like the enemy it once fought - its sign on the window of a pub can often mean an excuse for poor badly-kept lazily-brewed beer.
Well-made keg beer is filling the void.
I see no reason why CAMRA can't embrace the changing fashion and taste in beer whilst retaining its original heritage.
Think of it as a Gentleman's Club allowing in lady members.
But if “its sign on the window of a pub can often mean an excuse for poor badly-kept lazily-brewed beer” then CAMRA’s failure has been in encouraging a wide choice at the expense of good quality.
DeleteIf “Well-made keg beer is filling the void” then it’s perhaps too late for the “Real Ale – every pub should have one” target, “one” being the number of cask beers that many a pub could reasonably sell.
CAMRA actively discouraging pubs to stock too many cak beers would be a great idea but I doubt the beer anoraks who encourage pubs to pile the wickets on the bar would agree. Not all keg is 'well made' by any means - it's just less likely to go off as quickly as cask if it doesn't sell fast, and easier for the publican to handle. Now where have I heard that before...
Delete"Well-made keg beer is filling the void."
DeleteDon't think it is. In most pubs, the normal quaffing beers are cask or nitrokeg. "Craft keg" remains an expensive show pony.
Craft keg seems to constantly crop up in these conversations which suggests it has more relevance than you are willing to give it credit for.
DeleteNope, 'craft keg' is a tiny % of beer sales, it just happens that we are on a beer blog and it's importance gets amplified in the echo chamber.
DeleteCraft keg seems to constantly crop up in conversations in Good Beer Guide listed micropubs and free houses with an extensive beer range but not in ordinary pubs where lager is two-thirds of beer sales and cask or nitrokeg is the other third.
ReplyDeleteExactly. And it does depend what you mean by craft keg. Punk IPA pops up in a small number of Greene King pubs and just reinstated by Spoons, but I'd guess it shows up in only a quarter at most of the Beer Guide pubs I visit, which is where you'd expect to find it. Flavoured ciders much more common in micro pubs !
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