Sunday 3 April 2016

CAMRA's stroke of genius

The launch of CAMRA's Revitalisation Project has given the usual mix of heretics, apostates and the diabolically inspired another excuse to attack our mother church. A common criticism of CAMRA is that it was a big mistake to focus on dispense method rather than beer quality. On this, like so many other things, the critics are wrong.

Lovely, lovely
By tying their definition of real ale to cask conditioning CAMRA made real ale easily recognisable in any pub in which it is served: just look for the hand pumps. This has served well as an indicator of what to drink in a pub for decades now, and continues to do so today. No specialist knowledge is required, and people with only the faintest interest in beer nerdery can easily pick out the real ales.


Craft beer on the other hand is in a horrible mess already. The American definition (made with new or old ingredients, owned less than 25% by a multi-national brewery, total production less than Denmark's) is laughable. The Brewers Association even had to have an advertising campaign pointing out which breweries are and aren't craft. It backfired spectacularly though, and they had to run off with their tail between their legs and redefine craft again.

In Britain attempts at defining craft beer have been even less successful, and many beer geeks have had to settle for "I know it when I see it", which I'm sure if of great help to the average beer drinker. 
In a local supermarket craft beer is now another ill defined category like world lager.


Let's look at that a bit more closely:

Craft, crafty or Crabbies?


Is the situation any better in pubs?

As to focussing on quality, this is something that's incredibly hard to do in practice. Brewery's quality can vary, as can how the beer copes in the distribution chain, and how well it's kept in the pub. The national quality scheme for cask beer, Cask Marque, seems to be met with universal derision by beer geeks. If a professional industry body has a hard time ensuring quality standards would a voluntary consumers' organisation be likely to fare any better? Beer geeks seem to grumble about the Good Beer Guide more than praise it. Quality is very hard to pin down, and can vary from day to day. CAMRA's focus on dispense method was not a mistake, it was a stroke of genius.


13 comments:

  1. The hand pump is no longer the indicator of cask beer.Euston Tap and Holborn Whippet serve near perfect cask beer through taps on the wall.Through a sparkler as well I think.

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    1. And there's gravity and air dispense. But I'm sure the cask majority of cask beer is served from hand pumps.

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    2. And of course, going back to the birth of CAMRA, at that time probably not far short of half of all real ale was sold through electric pumps.

      Which the Founding Four probably didn't realise until they looked into the subject more closely.

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  2. As we genuflect before the hand pumps, let us search our consciences and be wary of falling into mere empty observance. What profiteth it a man if his beer is cool, only slightly fizzy, not actually off, but fundamentally dull. Eh?

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  3. Glad to see you're getting into the (holy) spirit! Worthy but dull beer is probably worth a post in its own right. Mass market beers of all types are pretty unexciting.

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    1. Hot news, the party congress has declaimed that “Improving the quality of real ale at the point of dispense” shall be a campaigning priority! Thermometers on stun, kids.

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    2. So no 'Spoons vouchers next year, we all get issued with a Tandleman thermometer instead?

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  4. Since when has Temperature been a guide to quality?

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    1. It's definitely part of draught beer quality. And I'm sure thermometers are standard issue to Cask Marque assessors.

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  5. Quality real ale at the point of dispense was my motion. As always, if your standards are low, that won't matter to you.

    There are plenty ways to encourage it, by merely focussing on it. Casque Mark fail by letting too many people off with a warning, but overall they are a force for good.

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    1. Crikey, Tanders, I'm not knocking it. I love "quality". I'm not really sure I know what it is - 1 part temperature, 1 part carbonation, 1 hygiene and 7 parts subjective?

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  6. PS. When assessing beer beer quality in the pub, start with the temperature, then the nose, then the taste and you won't go far wrong.

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    1. This is of course, correct. Mr T does know what he's talking about, and I'm sure he can take a joke about his little thermometer. As a first step, are we going to see CAMRA requiring all their branch festivals to have proper cooling in place (We're spoiled where I am, they do)

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