ALE November/December 1997 No. 289

Help CAMRA to Promote Real Ale and to Save our Brewing Heritage

Do you care about what you are drinking? Are you aware that many local pubs have closed in recent years and many more are under threat? Did you know that this country produces some of the finest beer in the world yet recently a number of long-established regional breweries as well as several small breweries have closed? Could this be partly as a result of the millions of pints of cheap imported beer being brought into this country? These and many more important issues are some of the threats currently facing the beer drinker and pub user. However, all may not yet be lost. CAMRA is here to fight.

CAMRA was formed in 1971. Its principal aim then was to save real ale as this style of beer was becoming very rare and being replaced by pasteurised, gassy beer. After a lot of hard work and vigorous campaigning, that battle was won and the national brewers returned to producing real ale. CAMRA also created the environment and demand for real ale so that many new breweries started up in business and many of these are now well established

In the eighties a further threat was posed to the future of real ale - bland mass-produced lager. The clever marketing worked again but CAMRA battled back through beer festivals, hugh media profile and publications like the Good Beer Guide to foster the demand for quality real ale.

Still the threats won't go away: big-brewery mass-produced non-real beer; massive illegal imports; tasteless refurbishments; restricted consumer choice. But CAMRA is here to stand up to these threats and campaign for the pub user.

Joining CAMRA

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