Magazine of the Campaign for Real Ale British Columbia
Volume 20 No 1
Jan - Feb 2010
CAMRA BC: 25 years a potted History It was born in the summer of 1985, at a meeting of CAMRA Canada’s Vancouver Chapter at the Rowing Club in Stanley Park. That day was special from the start for me, travelling as I was from Victoria to attend my first CAMRA meeting with people I had only met previously via mail. The folded-paper-in-an-envelope kind that you stuck a stamp on and dropped into a mail box. There was a sporadic newsletter from Ottawa back then, but it never mentioned B.C. and we never met any of the members from back east, or from anywhere else in Canada for that matter. On the face of it, the gathering looked like a fairly ordinary sort of thing: beardy guys with OldCountry accents, swarthy Canadians of the rugged coastal build, no-nonsense women that laughed a lot and had mischievous eyes (that could have been the effect of the beer). The first person to speak after I arrived (I was late) was discussing a letter from ‘head-office’ which came in reply to a plea for funds to set up a beer festival in B.C. He was disappointed to report that the membership fees paid to CAMRA Canada from British Columbians (incidentally, a whopping $25 ... almost the same as they are now) were not available to the chapters; we had to do our own fundraising to finance local events. This was a disappointment to all of us, but to me especially as I had a vested interest in Inside: ‘trading up’ to a proper Out & About 6 beer festival. For several years then I had organized Froth: Book Review 8 ‘The Great Western Beer Real Ale as Saviour 9 Festival’ in Victoria; an extravaganza that mixed Ullage & Spillage 10 homebrewers with beersausage sandwiches and Calendar 12 home brew. Exactly. But What’s Brewing
while the speaker moved on to other things and I poured beer onto my disappointment, a voice at the back (how come those voices always come from the back?) piped up loud and angry. “I am sick and tired of sending money across those mountains and getting nothing in return!” he shouted. I should paint a little context here; those were the days when Canada’s love affair with Brian Mulrooney hit the rocks. We didn’t like Central Canada and they didn’t know who we were. “I vote we tell those *******s to **** off and keep our money here!” Chorus of assent, chinking of glasses and there you have it: a unilateral declaration of independance that gave birth to CAMRA BC and a rush to the bar for refills. The new arrival was greeted with all the warmth and excitement of an adopted child. Except for the unneccesarily enthusiastic consumption of beer (which was for the most part crap, by the way - there was no craft beer in those days except for on-premise at the fabled Troller in Horseshoe cont. page 11 ...