If you’ve been called the most successful consumer movement in Europe, do you need a major review of your policies and principles? CAMRA — the Campaign for Real Ale — was given that accolade many years ago and its leaders now feel the time is ripe for an overhaul to meet the very different demands of the modern beer world.
It’s a high-risk strategy. The campaign has close to 180,000 members and about 1,400 of them packed the annual meeting in Liverpool over the first weekend in April. They represent the hard-core activists, the people who run beer festivals, produce local newsletters, conduct surveys for the Good Beer Guide and keep tabs on the breweries in their areas.
Many of them made it clear they don’t want to see any weakening of CAMRA’s main aim: to defend, support and promote cask beer.
Significantly, the man heading what is called the Revitalisation Project is Michael Hardman, one of the four founding members back in 1971. He stresses that the project is nec-essary as a result of the profound changes to beer and pubs that have taken place over the past 45 years.
Conference
When he addressed the Liverpool conference, he pointed out that,in 1970, beer accounted for 71% of all the alcohol consumed in the UK. By 2014, that percentage had fallen to 36%. In sharp contrast, when CAMRA was founded, there were just 175 British breweries, many of them owned by large national groups dubbed “the big six” by the campaign.
Today, there are 1,500 breweries producing a range of beers that Hardman and co could scarcely have dreamt of in the 1970s. It’s a curiosity of the British beer scene today that we are drinking a lot less beer, but it’s produced by a vastly higher number of breweries.
Michael Hardman also pointed out that in the early days of the campaign, it wasn’t necessary to fight to save pubs. They stood, free and unthreatened, on every street in towns, cities and villages. They were the vital hubs of their communities and, in the main, they were owned by brewers for whom the tied trade formed a vital part of their business.
That brewer-pub relationship now seems as dead as the proverbial dodo. Most pubs are now owned by pubcos with a hard-nosed attitude to retailing. Outlets deemed to be underperforming are closed or sold and turned into shops or housing.
Restrictions
At the same time, a combination of restrictions on drink-driving, the smoking ban and beer sold at heavily discounted prices by supermarkets have taken their toll on the embattled British boozer. Pubs need to be saved on the obvious grounds that cask beer can only be served in them: no pubs, no real ale.
Add into the mix the rise of “craft beer”. What is it? There’s no simple answer. Where CAMRA is concerned, real ale is craft beer. But there’s a new kid on the brewing block. Some small brewers are producing brewery conditioned beer that’s served by gas pressure in pubs. Some of its producers make a lot of noise and give the impression it’s the only beer in town: in reality, its sales are tiny when to compared to those of cask.
It’s undoubtedly popular, though, and such events as Craft Beer Rising are packed with an audience that’s visibly younger that those attending most CAMRA beer festivals.
Can the campaign embrace craft keg? It will be hard to swallow for many active members. But CAMRA urgently needs to reach out to younger drinkers if it’s to win newer members to its ranks who can bring much-needed young blood to its activities.
Cider
There’s also the thorny question of cider. During those 45 years, CAMRA has picked up cider as an important issue. It has a committee called Apple that campaigns for the ‘real’ version of the drink and it’s become a regular feature at beer festivals.
But cider is fruit-based. It’s a type of wine, while beer is made from grain and hops. In the booklet being sent to every CAMRA member, Michael Hardman asks if the cider link should be broken and I think the inference is clear.
The Revitalisation Project is a reflection of CAMRA’s success. Without the campaign’s activities, not only would there be no cask beer to drink today, there would be no “craft beer” either. Like many other countries, Britain would be awash with over-priced, over-hyped bland and fizzy beer produced by a handful of global brewers.
CAMRA can take pride in its success. When its crucial annual meeting assembles in April 2017 I trust — for the sake of all beer lovers — it will embrace policies that will keep it
relevant for the years ahead.
As President Franklin D Roosevelt once said: “We have only one thing to fear and that is fear itself.”