Seems like that there’s a lot of steam being blown about
regarding craft beer etc in the world of CAMRA at the moment. In the letters
pages of the current issue of What’s Brewing a couple of correspondents seem to be
standing up for craft keg: ‘while a good pint of cask ale is always going to be
nicer than a keg beer, these newer beers are not, as Peter Jackson writes (WB,
Jan), the spawn of Satan’; ‘CAMRA should be all-encompassing, supporting and
promoting all good beer, whether it is real or craft’. Then on page 7 there’s a
piece with the headline ‘Taste not ideology must rule’; this is written by Jim
Scott who has been in CAMRA since 1988 and the line that jumped out at me was this one: ‘I think we should judge with our palates and not ideology or — heaven help us — be
shackled to that obstructive corpse called tradition. We should welcome the
newcomers as separate but, unlike their effervescent predecessors, equal, and
unashamedly enjoy both’.
However, CAMRA also have their AGM coming up in Norwich and the
Bradford Branch has put forward a motion, part of which says: (this
Conference) ‘recognises and asserts that the terms ‘craft ale’, ‘craft beer’,
‘craft keg’ and similar terms are meaningless and misleading. Conference
therefore instructs that these (and similar) terms should not be used in any
CAMRA communications and publications except where absolutely necessary, for
example when quoting other sources and use of the term cannot be avoided. Where
it is absolutely necessary to use any such term in CAMRA’s communications and publications,
the qualifier (sic) should be used after the term and where appropriate the
term should be put in inverted commas.’
Some interesting conflicts seem to be
arising here and I expect the steam to keep billowing for some time yet, though while all this agonising is going on more and more great beer is being made and drinkers are not worrying what container it arrives in.
