8 BREWING & BEVERAGE INDUSTRIES BUSINESS When I eventually started consuming cask beer, I still veered away from CAMRA, even though I recall attending the London Drinker festival once and drinking deeply of Woodforde’s Wherry. I eventually joined about 20 years ago, edited the Somerset branch’s newsletter and have since had several books published by the organisation. However (and you knew that there was going to be a however, didn’t you?), the emergence in the last few years of ‘craft keg’ (or whatever you want to call it) has seen my support and interest in CAMRA wane. Even though I have remained a member and write regularly for its magazine Beer, I have felt that it has often become irrelevant to the approach I take to beer in my work (a bit like the whole debate about craft beer, which I am surprised to discover still takes place in certain circles). Here’s one example: when I wrote Britain’s Brewing Revolution with Roger Protz, I was unable to put in a profile of Beavertown because they didn’t do cask, though I did manage to sneak in The Kernel because of their bottle- conditioned beers while BrewDog also got a couple of pages to themselves, because both Roger and I argued that BrewDog couldn’t be ignored. On the other hand, the absence of Beavertown was utterly frustrating, especially as they are an essential part of the British brewing revolution. I had a similar issue with Wild Beer (who ironically enough have returned to making cask). I have had other gripes though. Another has been that the quality of cask at the bar is still so variable that I don’t drink it as often as I did. Ordering cask has become a game of chance in many pubs unless the place (like a couple of my locals) is known for the quality of its beer. You can argue that I can’t directly blame CAMRA as it wouldn’t endear them to their pub-owning and beer- brewing members if they started pointing out that not all cask was good, but sometimes there has often seemed a gap between CAMRA’s rhetoric and the reality out there. Then there are the beer festivals: the emergence of events such as Beavertown’s Extravaganza, Craft Beer Rising and Indyman in Manchester with their variety of beers of all dispensations, a younger and more vital feel has made the average CAMRA festival seem as exciting as a convention for stamp collectors (with notable exceptions such as London Drinker). Finally, I’ve also been impatient with the slow, glacial progress of the organisation’s revitalisation process. Even though it started two years ago it seems to have been going on forever. However, I am glad to report that the oil tanker has made its turn and CAMRA has announced that members are going to be able to get a vote on the future direction of the organisation in April. Simply put, CAMRA is looking to change its remit from being one of dealing solely with cask beer to one that, while campaigning for cask beer and promoting its specialness, will recognise quality beer that currently does not meet the organisation's definition of cask. In other words, keg (there’s stuff about cider and perry as well but beer is at the core of this article). Unlike other changes of policy though, which take place at the annual AGM, and are usually subject to the whims of a small minority, this time the whole membership is going to be give a vote, presumably through post or online. So, conceivably we could be looking at this year’s GBBF featuring a variety of keg beers. Why does all this matter, when I can get cans of Beavertown or bottles of Brew By Numbers at my local bottle shop? Here’s the answer, whether you like it or not, CAMRA is still a mighty organi- sation, even if only a small and increas- ingly ageing part of its membership gets involved. Its lobbyists have the ear of government (even if ministers are struggling with the hideous monster of Brexit), while with this proposed change it has the chance to show its relevance to a younger generation of drinkers in the same way it did something similar in the 1970s. And lest we forget, if you talk to many an American brewer they will more than likely express their love of cask beer and wish that they could make it as well as, say, Fuller’s, Harvey’s or Tiny Rebel (incidentally co-founder Bradley Cummins is standing for CAMRA’s NEC). So if you’re a CAMRA member and want to see things change I would recommend that you get that vote in, I know I will, which will be a first for me in over 20 years of membership. Oh and by the way, the new, revived version of Wrexham Lager is pretty good these days. Adrian Tierney-Jones Voted ‘Beer Writer of the Year 2017’ by the British Guild of Beer Writers, Adrian Tierney-Jones is a freelance journalist whose work also appears in the Daily Telegraph, Original Gravity, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, Inapub and Imbibe amongst many others. He’s been writing books since 2002 and they include West Country Ales, Great British Pubs, Britain’s Beer Revolution (co-written with Roger Protz) and his latest The Seven Moods of Craft Beer; general editor of 1001 Beers To Try Before You Die and contributor to The Oxford Companion to Beer, World Beer and 1001 Restaurants You Must Experience Before You Die. Chair of Judges at the World Beer Awards and also on the jury at the Brussels Beer Challenge, Dutch Beer Challenge and the Copa Latinoamericana de Cervezas Artesanales in Peru. Blogs at http://maltworms.blogspot.co.uk ADRIAN TIERNEY-JONES Called To the Bar BEER WRITER OF THE YEAR 2017 Can a leopard change its spots? I first heard about CAMRA in college, on a trip to the Lake District with the climbing club. We stopped in a pub in Keswick and I was asked what my local real ales were by someone with a copy of what I would later know as the Good Beer Guide. ‘Er, Wrexham Lager? Stone’s Keg? Carling Black Label?’ came my reply, and you can imagine the scorn, which didn’t actually endear me to these virtue-signalling casketeers. 8_Layout 1 13/02/2018 09:59 Page 1