What are CAMRA play at?

In the midst of the unknown entity of the pandemic and the often baffling advice we were fed by the government, we might justifiably have expected some support and backup from CAMRA HQ, whose message, after all these years, is still as relevant as ever it was. Sadly, though, it was not to be as a veritable series of perverse instructions was issued…..

Firstly, after months of umming and ahhing about whether or not to make What’s Brewing an online-only publication, it was suddenly announced (despite a flood of opposition from members) that the April edition would be the last paper one. One of the reasons given was that news appearing in WB was often out of date – but CAMRA then announced that a section of WB’s sister publication, BEER, was to be given over to WB news “to keep our readers up to date with the most important CAMRA news”. So – news appearing in a monthly newsletter (What’s Brewing) was likely to be out of date, but news appearing in a quarterly publication (BEER) wasn’t! I’m not sure which is worse – riding roughshod over members’ feelings or expecting said members to accept the corporate claptrap trotted out to justify the decision!

The scaling back of the Good Beer Guide was another source of embarrassment. A missive was received by Branches which told of plans for a reduced Guide which would feature 900 fewer pubs than usual. In our Branch area alone, the five East Northamptonshire pubs in the GBG were to be reduced to four and the seven South Lincolnshire pubs to five. You can see the letter I wrote to the powers-that-be on the opposite page. Now, I can’t take the credit for the U-turn that followed, but follow it did, almost immediately, so one has to assume that a lot of letters in a similar vein were also sent in! CAMRA Branch meetings were the next to undergo baffling instructions. On the 15th May, shortly after HQ launched a “Get Back To The Pub” campaign, we were told that “CAMRA have forbidden all in-person Branch meetings” – this despite drinkers being allowed back into boozers a couple of days later….. So – we could go into a pub, sit down and have a pint – but not if it was at a CAMRA meeting. That’s clear then!

Lastly – as part of CAMRA’s 50th birthday celebrations, the organisation was offering eleven bottles/cans of ale, selected by a cast of what seemed like thousands of experts but was actually only nineteen (!). All this for fifty quid! Personally I felt that, at a time of hardship for many, the automatic assumption that everybody had fifty sheets to spare was very disappointing – if not entirely unexpected. And – as far as I could see – not many of the eleven ales involved were bottle-conditioned. Black mark, CAMRA. Very big black mark………..