Comments on: A Brief History of CAMRA Bashing

By: Des de Moor

Des de Moor — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 20:07:27 +0000

I’m amused to see I’ve been bashed as a CAMRA basher! For the record, as a CAMRA member and someone who cares about beer culture in Britain, I think we need a strong beer consumer organisation and CAMRA is best placed to take that role. It just occured to me that if I was on the CAMRA EC, I’d be identifying the emergence not only of BeerX but also IMBC in Manchester, increasing interest in beer books among other publishers, the European Beer Bloggers Conference and many other such examples as firmly in the ‘threat’ category of my SWOT analysis. My guess is the fact that the organisation does undoubtedly dominate the infrastructure of beer appreciation, most notably through festivals, is one of the key reasons for its growth, and unless the organisation gets its head round the real reasons people join (which for several thousand of them clearly don’t include signing petitions opposing the duty escalators), some years down the line the cracks will really start to show and seemingly unstoppable membership decline will follow.

By: John Clarke

John Clarke — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:18:23 +0000

“only allowed to be one sided
Aww, bless”

What?! Christ, how patronising can one man be?

By: The Beer Nut

The Beer Nut — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 13:14:54 +0000

Being a knobend to a knobend doesn't bring justice or balance out the universe; it just means the rest of us have two knobends to deal with. only allowed to be one sided Aww, bless.

By: Bailey

Bailey — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:27:28 +0000

Our favourite generic blog post is the one about how other beer geeks lack perspective.

By: Phil

Phil — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:26:41 +0000

Two iron rules of any social group anywhere:

a) they look ridiculous to the outside world and/or newcomers; this image isn’t true of most members, although some members will fit it naturally and some will even play up to it
b) they look ‘extreme’/'fanatical’/'obsessive’ to the outside world; this image isn’t true of most members either, and some will try to dodge it by pointing to a sub-group as the real extremists/fanatics/bores/etc

(Did I mention I’m a folk singer?)

By: Bailey

Bailey — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:10:49 +0000

Sounds like you’ve got your next blog post sorted there, Phil…

By: Bailey

Bailey — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:10:13 +0000

His Lordship has a point, tough: ‘CAMRA bashing’ is actually just part of a longer trend of ‘beer bore’ prejudice, which is itself part of a general antipathy towards people who are ‘monomaniacal’ about their hobbies.

By: Phil

Phil — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:07:48 +0000

The piece at that first link was worth re-reading. Quote:

how difficult would it be to promote just good beer? Make a few definitions about cask conditioned ale, craft keg beers, and get people back into pubs

Define craft keg! Simples! But I actually wish somebody would – I think it’s the only way we’ll ever get beyond “it’s not real ale”/”it’s great beer”/”but it’s not real ale!”/”but it’s great beer!”

I’m guessing there aren’t any “craft” brewers using pasteurisation, for example. Is there anything else you absolutely must not do if you’re going to stick it in a keg (or a bottle) and call it “craft”?

By: Tandleman

Tandleman — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:06:25 +0000

“But the “craft beer bore” is likely to be much skinnier, with “ironic” moustache and/or beard.”

Indeed. But so were we (skinny that is) when we joined CAMRA. Give them twenty or thirty years more supping and we’ll see how that one goes.

Back to CAMRA bashing – it is pointless to refute it in some ways, but you have to keep trying, just like the small geeky element that does it, tries to be the tail that wags the dog.

By: Bailey

Bailey — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:01:05 +0000

We do. Thanks, Phil.