CAMRA Campaigns

Today I am going to describe some of CAMRA's national campaigns as detailed in my Members Handbook. Amongst the list of achievements, CAMRA's early campaigning revolved around it's core mandate, revitalising ale. Not 'Real Ale', but ale. The handbook states that without CAMRA's intervention, 'real' ale would have been "washed away in a flood of fizzy processed keg beers". Now, as I was not born until the late seventies and cask ales are now widely available, I take the availability of cask ale for granted. This section of the handbook could be better bolstered by listing key achievements or milestones which were achieved to prevent the extinction of the ale species. I take this salvation at face value, but I still question if breweries such as Young's, Fuller's and Marston's would have abandoned ale, and if CAMRA had any impact on the situation. There was obviously still a market for cask ale, even if it was just the activists. Anyhow it seems that revitalising cask ale is still a core remit of the campaign, however the definition of ale has been narrowed to the narrowly defined 'real ale'.
Community pub week, licensing hours reform and campaigning to fight pub closures have also been core successes in the fight for 'real' ale. I still maintain my position that JDW houses cause the closure of local pubs in the same way that Tesco causes the closure of small grocers and butchers, but apparently JDW is good for 'real' ale. I'll remain skeptical.
The tied house. Now here is a campaign that I disagree with. CAMRA support the principle of the tied house as it allows independent brewers to compete against the global brewers. I can see the argument, but in the real world it's the larger regional brewers (not the global ones) who are buying up all the pubs. Fuller's acquisition of several in London last week is a good example. I could suggest that this is good for 'real ale' as they will be the focal products of these pubs, but what about the small independent brewers who need to sell their products? The (relatively) big guns of the industry are not going to concede market share to the competition and stock beers from small independent brewers in their branded tied 'real ale' pubs. So the small brewers are then forced to search for free houses to do business with, but these pubs are coming harder and harder to come by and ultimately with no avenue for sales, these small brewers will go under. That's the way I see it. Maybe CAMRA need to re look at this particular campaign and re-address the threat to small independent brewers from larger regional ones?
Some of the campaigns such as Small Brewer's Relief and Supporting Independent Brewers are a breath of fresh air and are worthwhile causes. Again my concerns are that one particular campaign such as supporting tied houses works against the other campaigns such as supporting independent brewers. It's kind hypocritical but in an applied rather than suggested way.
The campaign for mild and 'Make May Mild Month' are OK in theory, but a little token. Brewers won't produce mild unless they can sell it - supply and demand. I appreciate the effort to create demand though.
I support the campaign for smoking ban in pubs, as basically smoking is pretty disgusting and I am indifferent to the campaign for cider. I also couldn't care less about campaigns for clubs and campaigns in Europe or the cyclops campaign either.
That leaves three campaigns I have not mentioned. Real Ale in a Bottle, Full Pints and Excise Duty. Of these I support the reduction of excise, but I think it's a bit like pissing in the wind. No government can be seen to support the reduction of alcohol related tax (potentially making booze cheaper) when the country has a recognised binge drinking problem.
I touched upon the issues of Real Ale in a Bottle in my post on Monday. I think the whole accreditation scheme is a bit of a branding exercises. I don't believe that beer that is bottle conditioned actually tastes better than filtered bright beer. Pasteurization on the other hand does affect flavour, but is not always necessary for bright beer to be stable.
The full pint campaign I have touched on before and is a massive load of rubbish. Ever since take it to the top was introduced I have been forced to take pints back for a top up at the request of mates who are just being difficult. Fair enough if the pint is a noticeable under measure, but not just a lively 2-3mm head that had subsided as in most cases. I don't know how CAMRA came up with the 25% of pints sold are under 95% full statistic, but it's hardly doing the publicans they are trying to save any favours. Anyhow enough has been said about these campaigns for now. Some are good, some are bad, and some have competing agendas making them hypocritical. And now thanks to Sausage and APRK, there is a campaign against the campaign. All very entertaining!