The Future
Complacency is not a word that appears in the CAMRA lexicon. There are still major issues to be tackled. As a result of intensive lobbying for several years, the big national pub companies are now taking greater interest in cask beer. They have little choice, as sales of global lager brands are now in sharp decline and younger drinkers are showing great interest in ale. A case in point is a pub called the Blacksmith’s Arms in CAMRA’s home base of St. Albans. The pub was owned by a large pub company that 10 years ago removed all but one of the handpumps on the grounds that the pub was used mainly by students who had no interest in cask beer. Under new ownership, eight handpumps have been installed, more are planned, and sales of cask beer are about even with lager. And it’s still mainly a student pub.
The biggest threat to cask beer—which can be sold only in draft form—is the dramatic and tragic loss of pubs. Mike Benner, CAMRA’s chief executive, calls Britain’s pubs “the shop front for real ale. A good pub brings out the best in British society, drawing people from all walks of life together.”
Around 30 pubs a week are closing, mainly in areas of high unemployment and poverty. Pub closure is a complex problem. It’s fuelled by a recent ban on smoking in public places, and difficulty in getting to more isolated pubs by car as a result of a strict drunk-driving law. Above all, Benner cites the grossly unfair competition posed by big retailers, noting “The huge price gap between pubs and supermarkets is crippling the trade, closing pubs and leaving people stranded alone in their living rooms with a can of cheap supermarket lager.” The big national stores sell beer supplied by the global brewers at little above cost price and sell it often more cheaply than bottled water. Pubs struggle to compete.
But the rate of pub closure is starting to fall and independent research indicates that pubs that offer a good choice of cask beers are more likely to survive than those that have a poor or non-existent range.
The best news of all for CAMRA is that young people are the new flag-bearers of cask beer. Beer festivals are packed to overflowing with enthusiastic young people tucking into pints of natural beer. The campaign should have no problem maintaining a powerful presence on the beer and pub scene with a new and younger task force of volunteers.
To the siren voices that criticize CAMRA for being rigid and inflexible in its support of just one style of beer, the response is a simple one: their mission statement is to campaign for real ale, nothing else. And as cask beer is the only growth sector of a declining beer market in Britain, nothing will move the campaign from its chosen course.
Roger Protz has been a member of CAMRA since 1976 and has edited the Good Beer Guide from 1978-84 and 2000 to date. He is the author of 20 books on beer, including the World Beer Guide. He thinks John Lennon was the best Beatle, but George Harrison was seriously under-rated. He was almost a professional jazz musician instead of a journalist, but has passed on his talents to elder son Adam, studying music at Sheffield University, and younger son Matt, who plays bass guitar in the rock group The Vertigos.
