CAMRA - The Campaign for Rudeness & Arrested development
‘What Fined beers do you have?’
‘Keg? Might as well have a Fosters.’
‘What do you mean you don’t sell bitter?’.
As a lover of the British beer scene and owner of a specialist beer bar, I’d like to send out a collective ‘ask my arse’ to 75% of the backwards thinking, Birkenstock fanboys, masquerading as a ‘Campaign for Real Ale’.
My days in the beer scene began around 10 years ago whilst living in Leeds at a small craft ale pub. We had 6 cask beer lines alongside a variety of keg beer from around the continent, and a small number of up and coming breweries from neighbouring towns and counties. We lived a quiet little existence on the outskirts; we didn’t get all of the trendy young, city types. No harem pants, no trilby’s and if someone was wearing a waistcoat it was because they were going to a wedding. We came into work everyday, tried the beers that we had on and talked in depth about how ‘Simcoe will never be as popular as Citra, but it bloody well should be’. Every now and then we would get a group of ‘lager louts’ in, which we had no problem with as they at least knew how to create a bit of an atmosphere. These groups could have come in, screamed the house down, eaten the chairs and still come out more favourably than the bane of any barman’s existence: the CAMRA member.
I will never forget the first day that my girlfriend worked the bar at my place. We had barely been open for 2 hours when she turned to me with a face like thunder whilst serving a customer. The bar was packed, as most opening nights are, so I put it down to the fact that she hadn’t worked on a bar in years. Deep down I think I knew that she was fine working on the bar, I just didn’t want to admit to myself that it had happened. They had found me. Just like student loans and male pattern baldness, CAMRA members had crept up on me. The mating call of ‘I don’t like grapefruit beers’ echoed through the building, seemingly eroding the oh so fragile and trendy exposed brickwork that we wrongly assumed would be their kryptonite.
Although my better half had worked in plenty of bars in the past, none of them were really known for their beer selection. She had managed to go her whole life without having the pleasure of meeting your archetypal CAMRA member. At the end of the shift we sat down to have a drink and celebrate our new establishment. Drinks were drank, toasts were made and questions were asked; namely ‘who were those old men sat in the corner all night?’. I’d never had to fully describe what a CAMRA member was before as I’d always worked in places where they were abundant; so putting together a full explanation on the spot, was difficult. I still usually struggle now, hence why my girlfriend usually gets the pleasure of sitting through my rants at least once a week, the only saving grace being that she now has rants of her own. I’ve never been so proud. For this reason, I have decided to write it down. My definitive list of why CAMRA members are the worst.
The first and most infuriating characteristic of your stereotypical CAMRA member is the outright arrogance and rudeness that is on display every time that they step foot in a bar/pub. Myself and others in the beer industry have spent years of our lives working in/with breweries and bars to learn about the processes and intricate details of the brewing/beer industry. Yet apparently this doesn’t come close to the expertise gained from being a baby boomer with a £20 a year membership and a bumbag full of Wetherspoons vouchers. These are the same people that will slate anything that isn’t a traditional ‘Fined’ British cask ale whilst ironically quoting Reinheitsgebot as gospel. If you want to have a conversation about beer with me, I will talk to you all day, as long as you don’t try and tell me that I am wrong for liking something different to you whilst quoting bullshit.
My second point is bittersweet as I know it comes from good intentions. When CAMRA started, they genuinely had a fight on their hands to save the traditions of cask ale within this country. Big brewers were ceasing to sell their beer in casks, preferring the more cost effective and ‘crap cellarman’ proof keg medium. The problem here is that this battle was won and cask beer endured. The keg beer that we see gracing the taps of the new wave of ‘craft bars’ couldn’t be further away from the beer that they previously fought against. These are beers with as much, and in most cases, more flavour than the traditional beers of which they are so fond of. Beer has evolved into something more than the original CAMRA founders could ever have dreamt of. There is a beer out there for everyone now, the traditional cask isn’t going anywhere. So stop having a tantrum, you look ridiculous.
One part of the problem which I had never had the pleasure of enduring myself is the rampant sexism that has become synonymous with the older echelons of the Twiggy Ale Troop (‘T.W.A.T’). My partner has been on the receiving end of more “sweethearts” and “little lady’s” than I care to think of. Although these could be seen as affectionate terms, they most certainly aren’t when you cut off your female bartender to seek out advice from a different employee just because they happen to be male. I’m done with hearing “they are a different generation”, discrimination has no place in a bar, regardless of when you were born.
The best place to witness just how stuck in the past CAMRA have become is at one of their beer festivals. Run in every major city in the UK, the CAMRA beer festival has been a staple of the UK beer scene since their first in 1975, which is also the last time they showed any sign of innovation. I recently visited the ‘Great British Beer Festival’ in London and have, along with everyone I have spoken to that was in attendance, vowed never to attend again. A day that should, by definition, be a celebration of the great beer that comes out of this country, turned out to be an embarrassing display of uninteresting beer being by drunk by old men, while the majority of under 50’s drank Belgian Quads and waited desperately for the opening of the American bar. The swarm that descended on the US section, when it finally opened at 3pm, was a perfect metaphor for the loss of patience that the modern beer drinker has for CAMRA festivals. Unless they shape up quickly, they have no chance of surviving in a climate where their competition are showing such a wide array of styles from the most amazing breweries in the world. Festivals such as Indy Man Beer Con, Leeds International Beer Fest and Craft Beer Rising, to name a few, are the future of celebrating beer in this country. They are the ones showing what we can do in this country, they are the ones showcasing the best in innovative and experimental brewing, they are the truly Great British Beer Festivals.
My final point has to be the most important one. It’s one that CAMRA refuse to acknowledge despite it being a huge problem and one that could well be the end of everything that they originally stood for. CAMRA are killing cask ale. If cask is to stand any chance of surviving the craft revolution, then it needs the most interesting breweries out there to continue providing it. As it stands, craft breweries are dropping cask beer from their repertoire at a rapid rate. Breweries like Cloudwater and Buxton have stopped selling their beer in cask and some incredible new breweries like Verdant, Unity and DEYA never even started. Why? Because it simply isn’t financially viable. Generally, craft beer fans are willing to pay extra for their beer because it is understood that good beer isn’t cheap to make. CAMRA appear to have missed the memo and it’s members are always the first to display their disgust at a pint over £4. These stubborn drinkers are digging their own grave by not acknowledging that brewers need to make money, and to make money they need to make good beer. As with any other product out there, if you want a good final result, you need to start with the best ingredients; if you want the best ingredients, then you have to pay for them. Why should a brewery keep making a beer and selling it cheaper just because some ex-hippies don’t understand economics.
I understand that not all CAMRA members are to be blamed, but generally the only people that announce themselves as such are the problem. It’s the feeling of entitlement and arrogance displayed by a large proportion of members that are giving the rest of the group a bad name. The current regime is rotten and robbing 189,875 members of £20. That money is supposed to gift the member to a whole roost of discounts and offers at bars and pubs up and down the country. I for one have never heard of a pub, that isn't a Wetherspoons, doing discounts for CAMRA members. Yet when I reveal that we don't, I am met with that usual sour faced look of entitlement that I have become oh so used to. Any forward thinking CAMRA member should be lauded as a revolutionary and handed the reigns. Nobody who claims to care about beer in this country demands it on the cheap.
£20 a year.
That’s £20 that could be spent somewhere other than Wetherspoons.
Fuck Wetherspoons.