A Modern Description of Real Ale Festivals

There are countless Real Ale festivals throughout the UK at various times of the year forming social events at which socially awkward Real Ale drinkers can theoretically meet, talk, discuss beard cultivation, compete to see who has the largest beer gut and - of course - imbibe vast quantities of their beloved beer. In reality what happens at the festivals is that fat bellied beer geeks come, feel alienated as they are too socially inept to talk to one another, and proceed to use the beer program list as a menu for ticking from top to bottom in half pint measures.

Festivals can range from fairly small events hosted by pubs and villages to freak show gatherings attended by hundreds of thousands of people and which may feature 500+ Real Ales - a common feature of these are tickers who are out to drink a half pint of every beer on offer. Usually around 20% of all beers listed in the festival programme will be unavailable during the event as the people responsible for their production have been incapacitated during magical battles with other wizards, or are far too engrossed in a game of Dungeons and Dragons to get around to making their pong.

Many Real Ale festivals are now hosted indoors or in marquees. Many of these will be fully air conditioned, making such venues suitable even for those who do not enjoy the aroma of several hundred large, sweaty men with damp beards combined with the fruity tang of three-day-old spilt beer and vomit.

Survival Tips - Beer Festivals

• Beer festivals will allow you to taste beers before purchase. Towards the end of the evening, when the staff have had a few themselves, they will become careless about precisely which quantity of beer constitutes a taste and will frequently splash a good third of a pint into your glass. Do this a few times and you can easily manage three free pints.
• No matter how intoxicated you become, do not attempt to get a root. You will not like what you wake up with the following morning.
• Should you find you have a hangover the next day, a hair-of-the-dog remedy can be obtained freely. Simply turn up at the festival even if it's 7am. They will usually require casual labourers to help clear up after the previous night's revelry and will pay you in beer - being the confirmed Real Ale drinkers that they are, the organizers will recognize your need for a beer-based breakfast, allowing you at least one pint before you start working.

If you've ever attended performing arts festivals such as Glastonbury, you may have felt put off from further festival attendance due to the lack of decent food - ie; meat - available at such events, where foodstalls tend to cater to hippies and other types of weirdo vegetarian.
With regards to Beer Festivals, never fear: Scratchings, Hamburgers, hot-dogs and hog roasts will all be available at a Real Ale festival. Be sure to have at least one pint of the strongest Real Ale at the festival after eating, as the high alcohol content will help to neutralise any salmonella or e-coli bacteria picked up from the meat which is likely to have been insufficiently barbecued. BBQ's are normally conducted via the antiquated charcoal method as gas BBQ's are considered not to be 'proper'. Most festivals will also have at least one stall specialising in extra-strong varieties of cheese such as Herefordshire Brown Cheddar, a traditional cheese made famous during WW1 when the Herefordshire Regiment used it as a nerve agent, bombarding the German trenches with it at Ypres.

All Real Ale festivals take very great care to discourage those who attend from driving home after consuming alcohol. A common measure is to display one or more real cars at the entrance to the event that have been involved in an accident that killed their drunken driver, the cars usually being supplied rather oddly by the Fire Brigade rather than by the Police or a car recovery garage. It used to be common to place a life-like dummy, modified to resemble a mangled corpse, inside the car as a further incentive to use public transport; however, following complaints at many festivals that the dummy was frightening, this is usually avoided which somewhat detracts from the whole point of the exercise. Extremely intoxicated drinkers can be seen attempting to get into and start the wrecked cars at the end of each night during which the festival is held before they are helpfully steered in the direction of their own cars by security.

That leads us to the final concern. After attending a beer festival you may feel that you have enjoyed yourself and feel that joining some kind of club or association might be a good idea. Don't do it. Once you have signed up to CAMRA they will send you information about how to grow a beer belly, where to buy sandals and which supermarket has the best plastic bags. Start down that path and its a short stroll to Morris dancing and pickled eggs. Beware. Tip - these symptoms may be remedies by drinking what you will now refer to as 'chemical fizz'. Five gulps of cooking lager will have you seeing straight again.

Redoak

I have blogged previously about the Redoak boutique brewery. Sure it's overpriced but the beer here is pretty good. I have never had a dodgy beer here and it really is something special compared to even the best that proper real keg has to offer (generally all beers here are proper real - although occasionally they have a pump on, maybe one of only two or three hand pumps in Sydney).

Anyhow I was in there chatting to the bar dude on Friday night sipping their excellent Bitter (3.5% abv) when he informed me of their recent success at the World Beer Awards that were held in London last July. After being told by numerous anonymous assholes in the comments section of this blog and various others that "Australian's don't know about ale" etc I find it quite humorous that Redoak Bitter took out the award for Bitter category ahead of every brown 4% beer that the UK can produce. Hear that, Australians beat the Brits at their own game.

Over the weekend I also caught Oz and Hugh - Raise the Bar. Episode three was very interesting, especially the beer festival in Manchester. Now anybody who denies the CAMRA stereotype needs to watch this episode. Beards, bellies and weirdo's holding plastics bags are pictured. Hugh Dennis even makes a comment that he feels out of place without a beard and a plastic bag. There is no point in denying the facts here and anyone who tries to argue to the contrary obviously falls into the stereotype. And to top it all off there is a steam train at the end, the crowning jewel in the ticker train watching stereotype. Props to Oz and Hugh for going on the lash with a bunch of female students from Leeds, but what was the go with the place adding essences to beer? Overall that segment along with comments from several drinkers along the way throughout the series confirmed to me that the average UK enthusiast doesn't know shit about beer.

CAMRA Beer Festivals - A Pictorial Expose

English on CAMRA

Another new weekly feature for Piss It Up The Wall. This one is called the "Friday Fuckwit" , where basically I call someone a fuckwit.

Anyway as I am lazy and didn't have long to think of anyone to award the honour to, I am bestow the title upon the CAMRA forum Oracle, Richard English. A quick glimpse over the CAMRA forums is all that is required to work out why.

Congratulations Dickie, You are the Friday Fuckwit.

CAMRA AGM

Ever wondered what goes on at the CAMRA AGM? Is there a dress code? Is there a secret handshake?
Every April, members of the secret CAMRA caucus/cabal get together at Stonehenge and walk around nude saying prayers to their pagen gods and conspire how they can inflict their medieval beliefs upon the great unwashed.
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I'm willing to bet that the items that will reside high on the agenda in April 2010 will be cask breathers, extraneous carbon dioxide, a lively debate on whether or not the Euston Tap is following CAMRA's outdated doctrines and is worthy of inclusion in the Good Beer Guide, and whether all lager drinkers should be referred to as Nazi's as traditionally Germans drink bottom fermented beer.

Pete Kicks CAMRA in the Nuts

That's correct, The greatest beer blogger of all time and Dungeons and Dragons Guild dungeon master Pete Brown has once again stated the obvious about CAMRA and caused controversy. Not that CAMRA doesn't deserve a swift kick in the nuts from time to time, but hey remember that The Beer Diary did it first.

I still don't get the issue with simple pleasures such as proper real keg. Why shouldn't the consumer have the right to drink beer that has not been tainted with the foul putrid air that lives in Pub cellars. Really, I want someone to put a petri dish down there and try and culture what nasties inhabit these areas. They are obviously not fit for food preparation or consumption. Like if I put a sandwich down there and served it 48 hours later it would probably make someone ill. But apparently because pubs have been around since before refrigeration, bottled carbon dioxide and god forbid cask breathers, its acceptable. The devices I listed earlier are designed to make sure beer is optimal at point of sale, but the chat to any CAMRA member and fresh, cold beer is actually tainted? I don't get it, but then I can walk out of building, across the road and have a really top Schooner of James Squire Porter in proper real keg form anytime I so choose to.

You can read about Pete Browns thoughts here.

Protz Gets Smashed

As if BrewDog's Tactical nuclear Penguin is not potent enough to get you smashed by drinking it, but proud communist and leftist beer writer Roger Protz has been smashed by writing about it. In two un-researched blog posts it seems old Protsky tries to tow the CAMRA line and writes some misinformed dribble. For a professional beer writer, you would hope he would at least have researched the subject matter before passing comment and being critical.
My favourite part of the whole debacle - It seems Gazza Prescott has stuck the boot in with the term 'CAMRA scum'. Funnily enough, it was the only comment that Leon Protsky Protz even tried to rebuttal!
Pure Comedy

Us vs Them

It seems that there is plenty of Us vs. Them like debates happening all over beer related blogs at the moment. I have said my bit on CAMRA and banged on about the merits of Proper Real Keg for over a year now and its good to see that my 'extreme' views are now becoming generally accepted.

Here at the Beer Diary we like, drink and celebrate all beer and don't need any special organisations, institutes or consumer groups to push/pour a pseudo-political objective down our throats. If a particular style of beer is not commercially accessible to us like real ale in the 1970's, or boutique lager in the noughties - instead of forming whinging unions, collectives and soviets, we adapt, immerse ourselves in the arts and brew our own.

Amen

"We like beer. That includes all styles from ale to lager and craft to crap - We like it all."

CAMRA = Fail

"I blame Camra for single-handedly holding back innovation in British brewing" - James Watt, Founder and Head of Stuff @BrewDog.


Full article can be found here.

The day I cut up my CAMRA membership...

Today was a day of hard choices. As a consequence most of my favourite beer glasses were relegated to the orange Hammersmith and Fulham recycling sack and my wallet was reverted to its former Australian self. Out with the National Insurance card, various HSBC debit and credit cards and my Fuller's fine ale club and CAMRA card, and in with my Medicare and St George bank cards.
It was fitting then that I disposed of these cards responsibly so weird beards could pass themselves off as me if they found my CAMRA membership. That is why I cut the membership card up into six pieces and disposed of them in five different garbage bins along Shepherds Bush Road. I guess I am still a member until my subscription expires, but it's of no use to me once I get back home.
As this is my last night in the UK, the missus and I ventured out for a last supper at one of London's best gastro pubs - The Havelock Tavern.
As I have mentioned previously this pub has a good selection of beer and decent food. It also happens to have a celebrity landlord in Lawrence Dellaglio. I do find it odd though that he has plastered his name all over the pint glasses..... see the pic below. For those foodies out there I had the steak & chips with bearnaise sauce and token leaves of rocket. I washed it down with a well kept pint of Pride and a tasty pint of Doom Bar. The missus had a goats cheese salad and a lemon lime and bitters. I won as hers was pretty dull, and I had the superior food beverage pairing.

Anyhow this is the final post I will be writing from the UK (unless I get bored in Heathrow Terminal 4 tomorrow). I'm spending the next week in Thailand getting the summer that the UK didn't experience. I may post from there but don't hold your breath. The good news is that I will be back on board after August 3rd. Till then take total care.

Ealing Beer Festival

Believe it or not, but 80% of the people in the above photo are freaks

As mentioned on Friday afternoon, I took advantage of my CAMRA membership to gain free access to the Ealing Beer Festival. For some time now I have considered this to be the only CAMRA event worth going to but now I am reconsidering this position. We arrived in the afternoon to find that only CAMRA stereotypes were present. That's right, the crowd was mainly middle class older gents with beards and belly's who liked to wear fishing vests. There were a few other people who I would describe as socially eccentric there as well but I won't rip on the mentally disabled. We can learn a lot from all people in society (including the disabled and handicapped)- except real ale freaks. Actually on this point I should note that many of the CAMRA volunteers were amputees. I have nothing further to say on that, just stating my observation.

Anyway enough of the crap lets talk about the beer. From memory I had Thornbridge Jaipur, Fuller's Vintage 2008 (which was infected), Phoenix West Coast IPA, Ascot Alligator Ale, Harviestoun Schiehallion, Thornbridge Blackthorn and a few others (OK it wasn't a particularly long session and I was drinking with some pace. This affects the memory!). I only had the Harviestoun beer to see what the fuss was about. Apparently because it's a cask conditioned lager it's fine for CAMRA consumption. Well basically the beer is nice, but it could be mistaken for a bitter. I don't think there is any particular 'lager' like flavour that jumps out and grabs you. Anyhow this was the last CAMRA event I will ever go to. I'm not particularly sad about the fact either. Somehow the thought of never hearing about the game of table skittles and having to make small talk with the fellow below is rather appealing. Where do these people come from?

To the Extreme

There has been a bit of debate recently surrounding the relative merits of "Extreme" beers. It seems that Tandleman started it here where he has digested popular CAMRA opinion (and claimed it to be his own and not CAMRA's opinion). Anyhow to prove a point, at the Ealing Beer Festival Yesterday there were only a handful of beers over 5%. One of these beers was Fuller's Vintage 2008. I ordered a half only to find it infected (tasting of artificial cherry and band aids/plasters). Despite me pointing out the obvious they continued to sell the beer telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about. Good one CAMRA!
I still drank the infected half. I guess that was pretty extreme..........

Beer Savers

These simple items (pictured left) are designed to stop cask beer spoiling, going off and turning to vinegar. For performing such a task they should be hailed as heros, but instead CAMRA have branded them as effectively "evil" as they were not used in the middle ages (where I presume all beer tasted like shit). CAMRA enforce their medieval beliefs on landlords by omitting them from their pub guide (confusingly called "The Good Beer Guide" which is edited by aging bolshevik Roger Protz) if they use them. For the publican in a remote area where trade is passing, or via advertising provided by this publication, not being listed is committing business suicide. These devices have unlimited potential, and their acceptance and use could see drinkers being offered the choice of many different ales available rather than the usual one or two bland choices which one normally comes across. The device on the left is a check valve and is sanctioned. It is used when an electric pump or gas is used top push the beer to the hand pump. It acts by stopping the beer being pushed any further, so the beer has to be pulled out of the hand pump - this stops the hand pump from leaking. The device on the right is a cask aspirator which allows a blanket of gas to enter the cask, but not under any pressure. It also contains a release valve which stops pressure building up with the cask - overall a nice bit of kit. The blanket of gas replaces air (air is roughly 78% Nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% of other gases) with an inert gas to eliminate oxygen. Oxygen is bad for beer and makes it go stale, although CAMRA would like you to believe otherwise.

From a technical point of view they can be used and still meet CAMRA's definition of real ale;

"Beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it us dispensed and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide"

So basically if you use a cask aspirator with nitrogen as a blanketing gas, you can still call your beer 'real ale' as only carbon dioxide is a no-no. So why do pubs not use them? Well they have a stigma in the industry and its not worth the trouble of being delisted from CAMRA publications. Also pubs renown for their real ale have the turnover and rarely see a cask go bad. But if other pubs which only have a marginal ale turnover used these devices we could realize the utopian world where every pub had 10 casks of well kept ale on. We the consumer are being denied this by the backward mentality of the self appointed guardian of beer - CAMRA. As a member of this organization I feel embarressed about such backward policies.

I sourced these from Barley Bottom Home Brewing Products after having a spot of trouble with another vendor. Much better service from these guys and I was happy to do business with them, they were also significantly cheaper as well!

What is everyone else's opinions on these devices? I certainly see no harm and I am all for seeing beer served in good condition everywhere.

Canterbury Jack

I have not tried this beer, but was drawn to make comment on it by an advertisement on the back of a recent CAMRA publication. Who is this beer marketed at?
Taking the ad at face value it could be assumed that it is being marketed as a chav beer. Two old geezers dressed up in very chav hoodie get up with two (chav) dogs that would not be out of place on any estate. So by placing this ad on the back of a CAMRA publication which is 'very' middle class are they inadvertently saying 'drink this beer and you can be a chav too?' Sounds very appealing to my middle class sensibilities - NOT

I really just don't get it. To further make the beer appear to be more chav like (my observations over the last few years have noted that cheap lager and cider are the beverages of choice for chavs), they describe the beer as "Lighter in Alcohol and colour, with a dry citrus flavour. It's ale that's like well wicked, innit". They could be describing cheap lager (like Fosters Citrus Twist).

Why don't they just advertise how the beer tastes: "Shepherd Neame - common as muck"

Is Lager Expensive?

I recently blogged about how some of CAMRA's marketing towarsd lager was factually misleading. I think it was;

"lager is weak in flavour and usually overpriced"

When I saw this display in Tesco recently I couldn't help myself. Compared to nearly £2 a bottle for 'premium bottled ale', I consider a crate of 24 Stella tins (9L in total) a steal. Please note that I did not take Tesco up on their offer...

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!

Fact Sheets

My CAMRA new members pack contained two A4 double sided fact sheets with information about beer. One of these is educational to new members and explains the brewing process and defines what 'Real Ale' is. It also concedes that 'Real Ale' is a marketing term devised solely by CAMRA - fair enough this is solid information, good stuff.
The other fact sheet asks the question "Is standard British lager real ale?". Hmmm now I would assume that if someone had gone to the trouble to become a CAMRA member, then they would be able to tell the difference between ale and lager. Apparently "lager is weak in flavour and usually overpriced". This is a pretty big claim to make given that lager can be defined as any beer that has been allowed to mature by ageing. Even expanding the definition to include only beers that have been fermented with a bottom fermenting yeast does not support this statement, this blog describes many flavoursome lagers. Product pricing is a direct reflection of what consumers are prepared to pay for a product - I guess people are willing to pay more for lager. Either that or they don't consider a crate of Carling for £6 in Tesco expensive. Of course cask conditioned lagers such as Cain's Lager, Harviestoun Schiehallion and Atlas Latitude are exceptions to the rule as they are produced by independent brewers and are served from a cask rather than a keg. Lagers from Europe are acceptable as well as they have honourable tradition abroad, even though the brands are owned and produced by the same megacorps who own and brew weak flavoured, overpriced beverages in Britain. The example of Budvar Dark is given as a form of acceptable lager, even though it is owned distributed and marketed by InBev Anheuser-Busch who also produce leading UK lager brands Stella Artois, Becks and Staropramen. Yes honourable tradition indeed!
I also find the following quote hard to swallow;
"British lagers are not given the lengthy conditioning necessary to bring out the flavour of the lager style, because it costs more money".
I have a few issues here. Firstly lagering for a length of time does not bring out the flavour of the lager style, it mellows the flavour and makes it smoother. Lagering does costs more money, but UK generic lager comprises a grist which is cut with adjuncts and bittered with hop extract. The beer is ready for drinking sooner as it has less flavour to mellow.
The rest of the fact sheet complains about the rise in lager sales and market share over the last two decades and why it is more expensive, giving the reason that more money is spent on advertising. This is true, but most lager drinkers have strong brand loyalty. The products may be more expensive in the pub, but in the off licence trade they are usually less than half the price of bottled ale. The chap who buys a crate of Carling for £6 in Tesco is the same one who is willing to remain loyal to his brand and pay £3.50 a pint in the pub. I'm sure if he could buy mass produced real ale such as Green King IPA for £6 a crate he would drink it down the pub in draught form.
The flip side of the fact sheet asks the question "How can you be sure you are buying real ale?"
The text describes a few ways to differentiate cask dispense from keg dispense, even though the definition of 'Real Ale' does not have a problem with kegs for packaging as such with the issue being more with dispense by extraneous gas. I'm not going to get caught up in the push vs pull argument and if or how it makes beer better or worse as that is stupid. Beer is not better or worse because of the way it is dispensed. Anyhow the point I object to is that the terms 'real beer' and 'real ale' are used interchangeably. Somehow if a beer is not by definition 'real ale', then it is not 'real beer'. We all know that this is simply not true.
The rest of the fact sheet is devoted to bottled ales, and how pasteurized bottles and canned beer are not 'real'. I think most consumers would buy a beer based upon brand rather than how it was carbonated prior or post filling the bottle. Some ales that are pasteurised such as bottled and canned Fuller's ESB are generally regarded as better than the cask conditioned versions of the same beer. I feel that the whole "CAMRA says this is real ale" RAIB branding is more to do with raising money for the campaign than based upon any fact.

My Verdict: The CAMRA fact sheets are a practical education tool for new members who may not spend their days reading about beer on the Internet. For the fact sheets to be useful they need get the facts correct first rather than perpetuate rumours with misguided information. For the record, I think the facts sheets are a good idea, they just need to be prepared in a non prejudiced manner.

CAMRA and Image

Today I have some nice things to say about CAMRA. While some people do not agree with my opinions in regards to CAMRA's relationship with J. D. Wetherspoons, they are entitled to their opinion. I encourage them to either blog responses to mine, or email Tony Jerome and tell him why they like JDW pubs and the relationship. My post was a direct response to CAMRA as solicited in my new member information kit. It saddens me that some people have contacted CAMRA asking me to be banned from the campaign and said unsavoury things about me on other blogs when I was responding to solicited feedback.
Anyhow Tony was nice enough to provide me with a lengthy email detailing why CAMRA has formed a strategic alliance with JDW. While I don't necessarily agree with all the arguments, some of them were sensible. I also managed to get my message and concerns across, so I consider this progress.
In Tony's response he also mentioned how image has been a problem for CAMRA over the years and the media's portrayal of the typical real ale drinker stereotype has damaged the real ale industry. Tony stated that the number of members who have long beards and perhaps enjoy wearing sandles are now a minority. I will put my hand up and say that I have been guilty of making fun of beardy weirdies in relation to CAMRA in the past. I will point out that this same stereotype can be applied to Morris Dancers, Dungeons and Dragons fans, Trainspotters, a well as Real Ale drinkers in general (not necessarily CAMRA members) and while I may still continue to occasionally fire off a dart at weird beards, I won't be implicating CAMRA in the process anymore.
A quick flip through the CAMRA members handbook (pictured above), and it is obvious that CAMRA are conscious of projecting a positive image. The handbook contains pictures of people from all social demographics, with the exception of the established real ale stereotype which is noticeably absent. I view this as a positive step in the right direction.

I still disagree with some of the national campaigns and other information in the new members kit and will elaborate further on these in forthcoming posts. Stay tuned.

CAMRA and JDW

It seems that people think that I have joined CAMRA to cause trouble. I assure you that this is not the case. Have a quick look through the contents of this blog. Over 80% of the posts I make are about Ale. I like Ale and I appreciate the effort CAMRA have done in the past so I can enjoy it today. As I have commented previously there are some aspects of the Campaign that I disagree with and I plan to address these during the week and state why I disagree. As for slinging shit on the real ale stereotype, I think I will continue to do so. It's funny and my posts always get a lot more hits when I have a crack at a bearded freak, but I will address the issue of the stereotype and how it relates to CAMRA in a more serious nature later in the week. For now, I want to discuss the nature of the relationship with CAMRA and Tim Martin's pubco J.D. Wetherspoons. The picture to the left is a discount coupon which I received in my membership pack. It entitles me to 50p off the price of a pint of real ale in a JDW drinking barn.
I don't want to reinvent the wheel about why I don't drink in 'spoons (Jeff has a good post here) but I will summarise briefly. I dislike;

• The drinking barn/warehouse like atmosphere
• The fact the toilets smell better than the pub interior
• The impersonal nature of the venues
• The business model which relies on low cost/high turnover of sales
• Hypocrisy in promoting responsible drinking, but selling cheap booze in high qualities (see above)
• Antisocial behaviour of some customers
• Low quality food
• Freezing temperature of cask ales (some venues)
• Being alcoholic friendly (well they are in London anyway)

My CAMRA membership card has "Campaigning for real ale, pubs & drinkers' rights since 1971" printed on it. Other paraphernalia included in my Membership pack says that CAMRA supports small independent breweries. Now in my reckoning, JDW and it's low cost business model is responsible for a significant number of pub closures across the UK. I know this is progressive capitalism and I get the point of consumer choice but when the rate of pubs closing is so high, then why is CAMRA supporting one of the key causes of pub closure?
CAMRA also supports breweries which produce 'real' ale, but JDW pubs use their massive buying power to negotiate sales prices which result in very little margin for the brewery. Of course the brewery has the right to sell his beer to other pubs at a higher rate, but the tied pub structure that exists in the UK (which CAMRA also happens to support) severely restricts the number of outlets a brewery can sell to. Overall the result is that these small breweries are really squeezed to the point of not being viable as a results of JDW's buying policies.
I also believe that when these coupons (pictured above) are used, then the sale of that pint is below cost. Selling alcohol below cost or even cheaply will result in people drinking higher quantities which is hardly promoting the responsible service of alcohol. I could continue, but the relationship between CAMRA and JDW serves only to advertise JDW which I feel will lead to more pub closures, and the closure or downscaling of smaller independent breweries. Surely this goes against the core values of the campaign and is highly hypocritical.

If you feel the same way as I do about this issue, then drop CAMRA's Senior Marketing Manager, Tony Jerome and email (tony.jerome@camra.org.uk). He is soliciting feedback both positive and negative on this issue.

Change from Within

I have been receiving a fair bit of email lately - most of it not very nice. It seems that I have upset a lot of weird beards by spelling out a few home truths and mythbusting a lot of CAMRA's propaganda. OK - I may have poked fun at certain stereotypes as well, but if you choose to look like a member of the Taliban or a wizard straight from a LAIRE meetup then you are fair game in my book. One letter I received contained the following excerpt;

"your opinions on CAMRA are based on pure ignorance. I would accept the criticism as constructive if you were a member of the campaign"

The email then descended into calling me a bunch of names which were not very nice. I won't be repeating these here. The email got me thinking, maybe I should join up and try to change the culture from within. This way I could direct my criticisms in a "constructive" manner and send them straight up to the CAMRA policy makers where at least they will be on the radar. So I bit the bullet and joined last week. My information pack arrived yesterday (pictured above). I am now a campaigner, one of 'them'.
I have reviewed about half of the material that was sent. It got to the point where I had to put it down because I couldn't take anymore of the bullshit and blatant lies deliberately misleading information that make up a lot of the propaganda. Some of the current campaigns are blatantly hypocritical and against some of the core remits of other campaigns within the overall campaign.
So what will I do now?? Well I will be continuing to shave and to exercise. No beards and/or belly's here! I will also be picking apart the propaganda over the course of the week and highlighting some of the blatant lies deliberately misleading information and why some of the campaigns are a waste of effort. I will publish that content here, as well as emailing it to the CAMRA contacts listed in my information pack. Will I effect a change - probably not, but I am going to put my money where my mouth is and have a go.