Being Candid about CAMRA

Out of the wonderful myriad of forms in which alcohol exists, my favourite tipple is real ale. Eminently drinkable, delicious and moreish, real ale tastes better and has a more pleasant effect than any other drink. But that’s just my opinion. I wouldn’t seek to force others who might prefer lager, wine or spirits to accept my view. Unfortunately there is a danger that this is precisely what the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) are doing. What ought to be simply a body for the promotion of real ale has morphed into a campaign group that takes a snobbish attitude to lager drinkers and even wants changes to the law to compel people to drink real ale!Set up in 1971 and now boasting over 112,000 members, CAMRA is Britain’s largest single issue consumer campaign group. Their members organise popular beer festivals up and down the country, produce the big selling Good Beer Guide, and give awards to the best pubs and the tastiest beverages. CAMRA once had a not undeserved image of their members as all being bearded middle class old farts that wore sandals and cardigans, voted Lib Dem, listened to folk music and supported CND, but this is changing as the group grows with a membership keen to save the beleaguered British pub. This is all well and good but unfortunately they also make political overtures that are highly reactionary.Firstly they claim that drinking real ale is better for the environment than drinking lager. Secondly they want a minimum price set for alcohol to deter people from buying cheap supermarket booze and getting them back in the pub. Thirdly they draw a distinction between themselves and lower orders of drinkers that smacks of snobbery. These three stances undermine the good cheer that should accompany drinking and are divisive at a time when drinkers should unite to oppose increasing illiberalism regarding alcohol that emanates from political elites, the medical establishment, and anti-alcohol campaign groups such as Alcohol Concern. CAMRA are really shooting themselves in the foot with their ill-considered politics, so it is worth looking at their arguments in a little detail.Regarding the claim that real ale is better for the environment, CAMRA promote a scheme called LocAle whereby participating pubs have to stock a local brew. This is promoted as good for the environment because the beer travels no more than 30 miles from brewery to pub door. Thus the ‘beer miles’ are supposedly less than for lagers that might be purchased from across the country. CAMRA clearly believes that if you drink a local brew, you will get a warm glow inside from thinking you have contributed to the war against climate change. But this is bizarre. Out of all the reasons for going out for a drink, surely protecting the planet has to rank fairly low down the list. Most people go out for the sociability, the taste of the drink, or for the effect of intoxication. The notion that we should be concerned about the carbon footprint of what we are drinking takes the pleasure and escapism out of the drink and makes it another aspect of the general drudgery of life, a lot like recycling.Furthermore it is wrongheaded to believe that local ale actually is better for the environment. Local ale is generally purchased by a pub in much smaller quantities than the big lager brands. This means the lorry trip from brewery to pub is being made for a smaller quantity of liquid than the lager trip. Additionally because real ale does not keep well for as long as lager, the trips would have to be more frequent. What this adds up to is the truth that per pint, a local ale has not really travelled less than an equal amount of lager. Because more lager is delivered, the beer miles in an individual pint are comparable to those of the local ale.In addition, the whole notion of beer miles is only an estimate of how far the drink has travelled. It tells you nothing of the environmental impact from the production of the beer which is far more significant. And as it happens, the big lager brands have less environmental impact arising from their production than the activities of small local breweries. This is because of the efficiency that is the consequence of ‘economies of scale’. By analogy, if you fill a kettle to the top in order to make five cups of tea simultaneously, you are using less electricity in the boiling process than if you were just filling it to make one cup but doing it five times, or even only thrice. Per pint of finished product, a local ale is likely to carry more of a carbon footprint than its fizzy cousin. But the evaluation of a drink’s environmental impact is really a side issue. The more important argument against CAMRA is that we shouldn’t even be concerned with a mythical ecological catastrophe being caused by our having a pint. That is guilt-tripping whereas drinking should be uncompromisingly pleasurable.Regarding setting a minimum price for alcohol, CAMRA argues that supermarket promotions are “irresponsible” and are “harming the nation’s health”. But surely it would be fairer to say that supermarket promotions facilitate a choice whereby drinkers can either choose a more expensive but nicer pint-in-the-pub, or get loaded at home. The cause of health problems that can arise from drinking too much over a long period is more attributable to an individual feeling dissatisfied with life than the price of a drink. The people whose health is at risk from booze are hardened alcoholics, not the general public, and this group will obtain liquor whatever the cost because their problems are such that they regard booze as the only consolation. Raising the price won’t help these people (and it will punish everyone else in the meantime) - what they need is an “intervention” from family and friends. Cheap supermarket booze doesn’t cause problematic alcoholism, rather it is a blessing for a large chunk of the population. The individual has a choice whether to consume it and so becomes the agent who is responsible for his decisions. If supermarkets were forcing the stuff down your throat, that would be a different issue. But the obsessive focus on price is blinding us to the fact that individuals have a conscious mind. It also depicts all of us as potentially on the road to ruin, rather like EastEnders’ Phil Mitchell who was an alcoholic and later a crack head.CAMRA also claim that cheap supermarket booze is “driving a shift in alcohol consumption away from pubs and towards drinking at home or on the streets”. For them, arguing for a minimum price is a tactic that might slow the rate of pub closures. Whether or not the price of drink is deterring people from going down the pub is a complex issue. Pub trade has been declining over the past few years due to a number of factors. The ban on smoking is a significant factor. I would also say that the rise of CCTV in pubs, over-zealous ID checks, the ban on certain drinks promotions, and the way drinking and driving is regarded as Original Sin, are not exactly creating a welcoming atmosphere for pub goers. But in a broad sense, there is also declining membership of most social institutions because of elevated levels of fear of other people. In relation to pubs, there is much scaremongering by politicians, the medical establishment and anti-alcohol campaign groups both over the health risks of alcohol and also its effect on law and order. We are frequently told that “binge Britain” is a dangerous place to live in where town centres have become “no-go zones” like the Wild West. This probably has an effect on pub attendance as people shy away from braving the nightlife. The decline in pub attendance is certainly a regrettable phenomenon but it can’t be redressed by increasing the price of alcohol in supermarkets. If people weren’t going down the pub because they couldn’t afford it, it is unclear how pricing them out of all booze will suddenly give them enough money to return. All it would do is punish them - it wouldn’t revitalise the pub trade.Another problem with CAMRA’s outlook is that they draw a distinction between morally worthy pubs (the haunts CAMRA members enjoy) and immoral pubs (places that the youth frequent). As they say, “Community pubs contrast sharply with huge open-plan ‘super pubs’ with loud music and minimal seating, which are more likely to give rise to binge drinking and alcohol-related disorder.” On this basis, CAMRA wants tax relief for nice, safe community pubs, and the penalty for the ‘super pubs’ is that they don’t get the relief. But what CAMRA should understand is that the super pubs are also a vital part of society. Of course they are not to the taste of the average CAMRA member, but the party atmosphere attracts the young adults. Their “binge drinking” should not be regarded as a health problem because the overwhelming majority will grow out of it before their health is damaged in the long term. And problems with “disorder” are really natural conflicts that emerge from growing up that all generations have gone through. They shouldn’t be portrayed as the descent into hell that is the fantasy of the political class and media, and now echoed by CAMRA. So again, we see that CAMRA is not a consistent defender of the interests of all drinkers and in fact entertains some prejudices about the tastes of those considered morally inferior.The basis of CAMRA’s recent move into snobbish politics was perhaps inevitable from its inception. The group was formed by four people who were opposed to the mass production of beer and the ‘homogenisation’ of the brewing industry. The four founders - Graham Lees, Bill Mellor, Michael Hardman, and Jim Makin - shared a mythical view of a tradition where all pubs were in idyllic rural locations, served a variety of top quality ales, and had no trouble from the peasantry. But this was never the case. The evidence suggests that beer was regularly heavily adulterated prior to the epoch of mass production with a variety of alien ingredients ranging from ground wood shavings to narcotics. It was only in the epoch of mass production that standards improved. And mass production allowed the product to become easily affordable to all. But did mass production cause homogenisation, i.e. the reduction in the diversity of beers that irritated the 1971 founders? No, the problem was an absence of demand for difference that mercifully CAMRA has since rectified. A diversity of beers can co-exist with mass production if a demand for it is created. This has been borne out over time, ironically partly thanks to CAMRA raising the profile of real ale and helping to create a market for it. What they should have done recently is give themselves a pat on the back and continue the work for which they are popular. But instead their anti-masses sentiment has evolved into blaming the populace for the demise of the pub and a self-glorification of themselves in the form of feeling superior from eco-awareness. It is a pity because it prevents CAMRA from making a consistent case for the joys of beer for all.CAMRA’s attempts to promote real ale by tapping into ecological concerns and their attempt to save the pub through coercion suggest they should be regarded as a mixed bag of positive and negative elements. Their large membership means they are of interest to an out-of-touch elite in their desire to control alcohol consumption rather than leave it to be free - CAMRA’s spokespeople frequently appear in the media echoing the voice of caution and CAMRA is an influential lobby group to Parliament because of shared concerns. But to become a decent fighting force for drinkers, CAMRA needs to ditch the anti-masses sentiment that continues in their outlook and leads to reactionary politics. Most of CAMRA’s members just want to enjoy their drink in peace and they like the beer festivals and promotional activity. But they are betrayed by a leadership that scapegoats other drinkers for problems that are not really of their making.

Barry Curtis is a barman and freelance journalist