2 minute read
Your shout
Write to BEER, CAMRA 230 Hatfield Road, St Albans, Herts AL1 4LW or email wb.editor@camra.org.uk
A good article on Nottingham
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pubs (BEER, autumn) apart from two errors. Greene King (of Bury St Edmunds) certainly is not a “local Nottingham brewery”. Also, it was the Great Central Railway which tunnelled beneath the Cross Keys.
Tim Arnold, Milford, Derbys
It would be interesting to see
the demographic that buys the top 10-selling cask ales. There are only three, Landlord, Wainwright and Tribute, that I’d file under “fashionable yellow things I don’t like”. The rest are old men’s bitters.
I’d doubt if these are the beers that are drawing in new adherents to cask ale. I think it is over-hopped citrus pales (plus black stouts) that are the gateway beers, but people grow out of them and move on to brews where the market is dominated by these rather bland national brands. We need to vote with our cash to prevent a reversion to the Big Six keg days I remember when Courage Tavern was the biggest-selling beer in the country.
Nik Wood, London E9
Laura Hadland’s mention
(BEER, autumn) of the Big Six national brewers reminded me of how successful CAMRA was in making them realise there was demand for better than their keg beers. With her identifying the brewers of the current 10 reliable connection and a device capable of accessing the internet.
In 2022, the majority of the remaining four per cent are making a choice not to use the internet. That is up to them, but there is a limit to how much of CAMRA’s resources should be used on them. It is akin to only making programmes for the 7,000 people who still purchase a black and white TV licence, even though every television these days has a colour screen. The difference is, anyone deciding to get online won’t only use their internet connection for CAMRA purposes.
Nik Wood files Timothy Taylor’s Landlord under “fashionable yellow things I don’t like”
best-known cask beers as the ‘Modern Big Six’, it’s clear the Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company is the only one of the four massive brewers with a commitment to cask beer.
Maybe some of CAMRA’s campaigning effort should be directed towards persuading AB InBev, Heineken and Molson Coors that they, too, should brew the quality beers that many pub users expect.
Paul Mudge, Stafford, Staffs
In reply to Stephen Dearing (BEER, autumn), broadband first became affordable for residential properties more than 20 years ago; 96 per cent of the UK now has a
Ed Taylor, Bingham, Notts
As CAMRA was founded by four
journalists, you must expect scrutiny of the writing in BEER. My beef is the wrong negative of ‘interest’. There are two: ‘disinterest’, which means not having a vested interest; and ‘uninterest’, which means bored. Think of it like a cricket umpire: they must be disinterested in the game (ie, impartial), but not uninterested (ie, bored)!
