Tuesday 11 February 2014

CAMRA and the Future


Tim Webb, guru and author of all thing beerily Belgian, has set the cat among the pigeons by suggesting in a letter to CAMRA's esteemed organ, What's Brewing, that CAMRA needs to change and concludes by saying:

"The challenge for the Campaign is how to adapt to the much-improved world of beer it helped create. Luke warm acceptance of, or being not against the greatest improvements to beer tastes in a century, is not a good enough stance. To younger eyes it makes CAMRA look like a much-loved grandparent who wants to keep driving even though they can’t make out the road ahead."

When you examine Tim's letter, it is a bit of a mixed bag with much to agree about.  There are some gaps in his arguments though. He says "Luke warm acceptance of, or being not against the greatest improvements to beer tastes in a century, is not a good enough stance." Sorry.  What are these "greatest improvements to beer tastes in a century". Tim doesn't say, so it is somewhat difficult to know what he is driving at here, other than CAMRA should in some way give more ground to those who believe in beer other than real ale.  Actually that is most of us and most CAMRA members. A few die hards maybe stick entirely to cask, but most of us drink other beers too, so to some extent this is a moot point for CAMRA members, though there is a growing number of younger end beer drinkers that may need a little more convincing from their side of the argument. The divide isn't just a CAMRA affair.

He does make some very valid points about brewing practice and has concerns with the word "traditional" in the CAMRA definition of real ale, implying it harks to a non existant golden age where things were done "properly".  He is right of course and partial conditioning of beer in the brewery is nothing new at all. As for "traditional", I rather fancy it came from the name that the trade used to call real ale - cask conditioned beer if you like - rather than any attempt to imply beer had always been made in an artisanal and time honoured way, as Tim suggests. The trade used the term "traditional" to distinguish it from keg and other bright beers. His assertion that the CAMRA definition would implode if the word "traditional" was removed is somewhat unsupported by any evidence.  I would be most suprised if real ale drinkers were, or are, purely or substantially attracted to real ale due to tradition.  I suspect the answer is much more prosaic and that most feel that (to them) it just tastes better.

I do agree with him in other ways though.  The genie is out of the bottle in that there are many more good beers out there, that are neither traditional, nor cask conditioned, so it does need to be addressed.  How to co-exist with this is a dilemma.   To paraphrase Marx, "The problem is not in identifying what is wrong with the world, but how to change it." Tim says in his letter about the Good Beer Guide "CAMRA has championed a bureaucratic device to inform its members what sort of beer is good – as in the term Good Beer Guide. Thirty years ago this mattered little, as decent beer and cask ale,in Britain at least, were synonymous. But then things changed."

Tim offers no solutions as to what should be done, so, eating this elephant bite at a time,  here's a thought: The Good Beer Guide may not be the all inclusive, unambiguous title that it once was, (as Tim Webb points out) but it has recognition and value which make a change in the short term not only unlikely but commercially suicidal.  Why not though run a bold strapline under the title to say "The definitive guide to real ale and where to drink it"? CAMRA would then, if nothing else be nailing its stated real ale colours to the mast and be clearlyclaiming no more than the GBG is a guide to real ale.

The vexatious question of what CAMRA should do about craft keg is one that needs a bit more careful thought. But by my suggested subtle change to the Good Beer Guide, we'd have a starting point.   CAMRA campaigns for real ale. Just accept that and build on it and modernise it, including our definition of real ale and a full explanation of how the term arose. We should be unafraid where we encounter a mixed economy of cask and keg. Most good craft beers bars already do this. We should provide better education and words about other beers and better definitions of them too.  We need to include more about craft keg beer in our publications, including the GBG, while still emphasising our commitment to real (cask) ale as uniquely British and a fantastic product in its own right. The fact that by and large it can only be consumed in the pub is a good point to emphasise too, as should the fact that cask beer still has its dangers to face. (Which is another reason to support it strongly). We in CAMRA do need to improve what we do  and how we do it in a changing beer world (despite the urban nature of most of the changes).

There are other areas too where we need to up our game. But we aren't as broken, out of touch and irrelevant an organisation as Tim implies.  Not by a long chalk. But maybe it is time to demonstrate that to the doubters.

Actually the Good Beer Guide often mentions in its entries the fact that craft keg and bottles are sold.  I also recommend both Curmudgeon and Paul Bailey who cover this subject too.

46 comments:

Phil said...

This is going to sound irrelevant, but bear with me!

I went to the Font in Chorlton when it opened last year. They didn't have a board up for cask ales (they do now - hurrah), but everything I tried was in the £3.00-3.60 range; upper end of the Chorlton norm, basically. But the prices of the keg stuff they had on were crazy - several things were in the £8-£9 pint range.

I was in there the other day and had a pint of Dark Star Revelation - a slightly startling £4.20 (although I had my CAMRA discount). Looking around the boards I noticed that the keg prices topped off at £6 - several things were going for £5.50, £5.90 or "£4 for 2/3" (I see what you did there), nothing for any more than that.

So the price gap is narrowing, presumably thanks to market forces (i.e. people really don't want to pay £8 a pint for beer). Give it another year and perhaps the gap will have disappeared altogether - and with it a big part of the cachet of 'craft keg'. (Definition of 'craft': a label which allows you to have the conversation "Why's that so expensive?"/"Because it's craft".)

The question CAMRA have been asking brewers all along - and it's still a valid question - is "are you buggering up the beer more than is absolutely necessary?". I guess we're starting to need a working party to [re]define "buggering up". I suppose the answer wouldn't necessarily have to include ppm of active yeast, but I still feel it's a good place to start. (How much unfiltered 'key keg' secretly qualifies as 'real ale', I wonder.)

Cooking Lager said...

Personally I quite like the beard club pretending it's an authority on what to drink, and what is or isn't "good". It may be nonsense but it adds to the gaiety of the nation that such shite is hawked with a straight face. Long may it continue!

Curmudgeon said...

I would say it's perfectly possible for CAMRA to evolve to a position where, although still giving pride of place to cask beer, it also gives recognition to other forms of quality beer, whether draught or packaged. Indeed you could say that publications like Opening Times already in effect do that.

I would suggest that the dogmatic diehard attitudes are much more common than you suggest - try reading a copy of the Central Lancashire magazine Ale Cry, for example. Only the other day I was having a discussion with a prominent local CAMRA activist who was basically arguing "it's not craft keg, it's just keg, and we should be dead against it."

I wouldn't support introducing nitpicky technical criteria to redefine real ale. The beauty of the concept is that, in general, it's pretty easy to understand. Just look at the knots APPLE have tied themselves up in over defining real cider, and the lack of respect they thus command amongst cider producers and consumers.

Less so now, but when CAMRA was founded the "tradition" element was very important. It was the small, quirky, old-fashioned brewers against the big, corporate, modern ones.

Tandleman said...

Mudgie: I don't think your anecdote from the Land that Time Forgot proves anything at all.I doubt it is representative any more and votes at the AGM would seem to back me up on that.

Nor do we need to nit pick over anything other than the definition including "traditional."

Cookie: If only it was that simple any more.

Phil: I think price is an Achilles heel for non cask beers. Quality may become an issue too. There's a lot of undrinkable stuff out there. (Applies to cask too.)

DavidS said...

Thinking out loud here, but I guess that some things that could maybe happen (in increasing order of controversy) would be:

i) CAMRA accepts that campaigning for "real ale" isn't the same as campaigning for "brown bitter" and welcome the fact that hip new breweries and bars are selling cask ale in a wider variety of more experimental styles (if only there was a word for this *cough* *cough*), resolves to do more to showcase these breweries at festivals, bars in beer guides etc, makes no comment on other means of dispense that such breweries or bars may choose to use.

ii) CAMRA views "good keg" (foreign or domestic) along with good wine, whisky etc as good and enjoyable if you like that sort of thing and not something to be railed against, but not something that we actively support either. Generic keg-bashing discouraged, but no steps to actively support keg taken.

iii) CAMRA views "good keg" alongside good bottled beer as generally a good thing for beer, but keeps real ale as the focus of the campaign. Maybe mentions an interesting keg range in GBG as an additional attraction provided cask stuff is also up to scratch, maybe have a few domestic keg things on a side bar at beer festivals.

iv) CAMRA drops the exclusive focus on real ale, still supports cask but includes keg-only pubs in the GBG, gives keg equal billing at beer festivals etc.

To me i) seems pretty essential, ii) would be nice, iii) might be pushing it and iv) I think pushes it too far would risk losing some of the point of the organization.

Did any of that make sense at all? Thoughts?

DavidS said...

By the way, by "iii) might be pushing it", I mean "iii) would be a pretty hard sell to a lot of members and isn't so crucial if you've managed to get them to accept i) and ii)..."

For my money it'd still be sort of desirable, but probably not worth alienating the old codgers who get stuff done.

Curmudgeon said...

Surely CAMRA already does (i) - it's a myth that most active members are primarily interested in boring brown bitters and I would say in recent years they have been enthusiastic promoters of hop-forward pale beers. Indeed the lack of "balanced bitters" at some beer festivals (including the one in The Land That Time Forgot) is noticeable.

John Clarke said...

I like to think that the "Land that Time Forgot" was a reference to Central Lancs rather than anywhere near to home...

py said...

craft keg should be given a similar status to real cider: as a secondary campaign, separate but equal. Its not like its really a threat to cask ale, and a better quality of draft beer across all formats is better for everyone.

Tandleman said...

py. Not going to happen and not even desirable.

py said...

Not desirable, why? Because you see it as a threat to cask ale or because you see improved quality of keg beer as a negative?

Chris said...

Gosh, I wish CAMRA would campaign for boring brown bitter (though most round my way are more like amber). I'd like to see a few more new ones coming out and maybe a few less of the ubiquitous c-hop golden ales.

Phil said...

Chris - it's true, there is such a thing as boring yellow bitter!

Curmudgeon said...

Yes, you can have too much of any good thing. Full marks to Ringway Brewery of Stockport from producing properly bitter beers in the traditional English style using only English hops.

Cooking Lager said...

It's a pity there is no poll.

I would like to vote for the future of CAMRA being a middle aged middle class drinking club. I think that would be nice. No technical committees deciding what is good or bad. If you like boring brown pity, cool. If you like pale yellow bitter, cool. If you drink the chemical craft keg filth, cool. I would draw the line at those that drink cheeky vimto (blue wkd & port) but in general, what gets you through the night is alright.

The only campaigning should be in an ironic post modernist sort of way. Like a campaign to bring back spitoons or something.

Tandleman said...

A progressive like you should stand for the National Executive Cookie. You would be a shoo in.

Tandleman said...

py: For reasons I have stated many a time. We campaign for real ale. If you want to campaign for real keg, found your own organisation.

Improved quality of keg beer isn't a negative though.

Jeff Pickthall said...

I've long argued that CAMRA's devotion to the word "traditional" deterred more people from real ale than it attracted. For many "traditional" is tied in with "compacent", "old-fashioned", "reactionary", "dull", "unimaginative" etc.

My heart sinks when I see a new brewer declare itself to be a brewer of "traditional real ale".

It is very conspicuous that in the thriving new world of Craft, the T word is almost entirely absent.

DavidS said...

@ mudgie: "Surely CAMRA already does (i) - it's a myth that most active members are primarily interested in boring brown bitters and I would say in recent years they have been enthusiastic promoters of hop-forward pale beers."

Fair point. I guess it varies from branch to branch (and from member to member) but yeah, our local festivals are pretty good at having varied styles, including hipster approved craft breweries and local operations doing similar sorts of stuff but without the hipster cachet.

Maybe that brings us back to the last line of the original post: "But we aren't as broken, out of touch and irrelevant an organisation as Tim implies. Not by a long chalk. But maybe it is time to demonstrate that to the doubters."

(In fact, I think the paragraph before that is pretty much spot on as well...)

Paul Bailey said...

Thanks for the link to my post on this subject, Tandleman. I won’t repeat stuff I’ve already said, but I have been doing a lot of thinking about this recently. The view I’ve come to is that CAMRA should continue to focus on Real Ale, as it’s something both concrete and easily definable. “Good Beer” on the other hand is far too woolly much too subjective and just wouldn’t work. “We’re the Campaign for Good Beer”. “OK, define Good Beer.” Yeah, right!

Concentrating on Real Ale though does not mean dismissing other types of beer out of hand. We already include filtered Continental lagers, along with many other indigenous foreign beer styles, in our festivals, and there’s no reason why this inclusion should not be extended to “craft keg”.

CAMRA is obviously doing something right as the membership is still rising. The challenge though is to convert all those passive, “arm-chair” members into active ones. Pub preservation is another major challenge, and is one which our local branch is taking an active role in by opposing closures, and getting pubs listed as Assets of Community Value. We have had some success here, and this is definitely an area which appeals to people of all ages and from all walks of life. There’s nothing like a threat to their favourite watering hole to spur people into action. Whatever happens there are certainly some interesting times ahead, and I think it’s safe to say there’s life in the old dog yet!

Cooking Lager said...

In converting arm chair members, Paul, I think you need to be moving in the direction of free ale.

You get free ale for volunteering for a beer festival and if you play it right you can get a cushy none job with more than enough to get pissed up on. As for other things, free sandwiches and buffets are good but not always worth going out for on a wet and rainy night. Throw in some free grog alongside enough of a buffet to make a free tea and even I would sit through some interminable dry procedural and irrelevant meeting.

Anonymous said...

Real Ale, real ale, real ale........as opposed to what? un-real ale or possibly imaginary ale or virtual ale? Although Real ale is explained in a dictionary I can't help feeling it sounds a bit daft especially to the younger generations. As you may sense I'm not a CAMRA member but just an ordinary person who enjoys beer and reading this blog. Dismiss at will.
Thanks - Ian James.
Young at Heart

Pastey said...

Sorry for the long reply, but you did ask.

A lot of people don’t know what CAMRA’s main aims are, they see the key campaigns, but those come and go. They know why it was set up, to save real ale, but they don’t know it’s also for promoting cider, foreign beer styles or pubs. They see these things at beer festivals, but they also see raffles and tshirt stalls. In general CAMRA seems too disjointed, and the vocal infighting doesn’t help, especially when cider comes up.

So first CAMRA needs to work out and clarify what it is actually for, and then it needs to let people know that. And whatever it decides has to be done nationally and positively.

Having something vague, like the definition of Real Ale itself allows for a lot of leeway, and modernising. If a brewer changes the hop type or adds strawberries to their beer, then the loose definition allows it to still be a Real Ale. But if a cider producer adds strawberries to their cider, it’s no longer a Real Cider because the definition is tight. By focussing too tightly the campaign runs the risk of legislating itself into a corner and then in future having to admit it was wrong about something. Which isn’t a bad thing in itself, but having the room to manoeuvre in the first place is better.

There’s also some things that just don’t make sense, and a lot of these are around the awards and entry into the good beer guide. Some branches have pub of the month, some pub of the season, some only pub of the year. People travel around more these days than they did back in the 70s, and seeing this disparity between branches makes CAMRA as a whole look a bit amateurish, more like a bunch of separate drinking clubs than a national campaign. Then some branches have a rule that if you’ve won it one year, you can’t be entered the following one, all to give others a chance. They have a chance, they can be better pubs. And it’s the winners of the local branch pub of the year awards that go on to region and national competitions.

And if branch awards weren’t bad enough, rules for getting into the Good Beer Guide vary from branch to branch too. Some branches use a voting scheme carried out all year round by any member to guarantee the overall quality of the pub, some branches do visits leading up to the voting (and landlords are also CAMRA members and know when this will be) and at least one branch I was a member of used to automatically put in the previous year’s pubs unless anyone could justify them not being included, a real case of dead man’s shoes.

Managing volunteers isn’t easy, I know, I do it for a living. And you have to allow some leeway for them to express themselves and find the best way for them to work. But for things that are important nationally, like Pub of the Year winners going forward to a national competition, or a national pub guide, then the rules absolutely must be decided nationally, and they absolutely must re-enforce CAMRAs focus, whatever that chooses to be. And those rules really need to be publicised and promoted. If CAMRA want publicans to run their pubs in a certain way, and having a high profile national competition that says “This is the best pub” means that CAMRA do want them run like that, then they really need to let the publicans know this.

Those really are just two issues, but I think in general CAMRA knows the faults that people see, and in general it’s making attempts to address some of them. Some individual members certainly are doing a lot more than others. But I think that while it’s addressing individual issues, it’s missing out on something important. CAMRA isn’t a collection of smaller issues, it isn’t a collection of local branches. CAMRA is a national campaign, and as such I think that everything needs to be looked at as a whole. I think it needs to step back from what and how it’s currently running, and then rather than addressing individual issues, it needs to readdress itself as a national campaign and come back more focused and more coordinated.

py said...

What is CAMRA for anyway? It does a pretty crappy job of protecting and promoting real ale frankly, because it appears to have very little understanding of why the people that don't already drink real ale choose not to.

Clue: its not because they're all drinking Watney's Red fucking Barrel. That war was won 30 years ago, move on.

Tandleman said...

py: No it doesn't. Why do you think real ale has grown in the last decade? Just read the Cask Reports.

Wars are never won. You just get a sort of lull until the next time.

Move on to what? Craft Keg?

py said...

"Why do you think real ale has grown in the last decade? Just read the Cask Reports"

Point of order: Cask Ale sales fell every single year from 1991 to 2011.

Curmudgeon said...

By and large, the people who don't drink real ale drink lager. The main reasons they do this are that it is cold, refreshing and consistent.

py said...

Well, they might drink lager (although in decreasing numbers), or they might drink cider or wine or spirits or alcopops, or they might not drink at all.

That last one is becoming an increasingly popular option thanks to 20 years of largely uncontested anti-alcohol propaganda.

Cooking Lager said...

The authentic/craft lager category is growing. Cooking lager is shrinking. Boo Hoo. Overall beer is shrinking. Whether this is people choosing different products or demographics, I'd opt for demographics though only anecdotaly.

I don't see many cooking lager drinkers switching beers, just aging, staying in with the kids, drinking more wine and boozing with their mates less.

Cider alcopops appear most popular with the young, more so than craft beer but most I work with that do drink beer would opt for a craft lager if available.

verify word : Love

Paul Bailey said...

"Throw in some free grog alongside enough of a buffet to make a free tea and even I would sit through some interminable dry procedural and irrelevant meeting."

This seems to work for our AGM's, Cookie.

Rob Nicholson said...

All I know is there is "something" wrong in all of this. There are too many words been written for it to be just a passing thing.

I think we need to get some fun back into the campaign too. It's all a bit serious.

Curmudgeon said...

There is certainly a niggling undercurrent of discontent that isn't going to go away. It can't be healthy that people aren't allowed to voice their honest personal beliefs in an official context.

Rob Nicholson said...

I'm sure Colin V said that they were considering more super regional meetings. A real debate on CAMRA core policy would be a good if not potentially explosive topic...

Coxy said...

I Have not renewed my CAMRA membership, as I live right near their head office, god they are boring and dull in there. I think the war is won, there will be a new war in the future but the current mob will be dead by then. I just think we need a "I hate Brewdog camapaign" not just because of Keg but because I hate their nerdy image, why can't they try to be cool?

kaiserhog said...

It is obvious that good cask ale and good keg ale/lager are going to coexist with each other and that is great news for the consumer.

Coxy said...

someone has added the CAMRA HQ in beer in the evening as "The Bearded Man" pub. Class

Gary Gillman said...

I feel it would dilute its mandate and mission to include keg beer in its charter. The fact that you can have great keg beer and poor quality cask does nothing to take away from CAMRA's unique role in preserving a great English heritage. Including keg (thus in all its forms since how can you differentiate?) would mean presumably you would have to include the bottled equivalent and the focus of the organization would get blurred. There was always a need for CAMRA, and if it is true cask ale sales are declining again, surely the need is greater than ever (this is the lull vs. victory thing). Even in the "great" years of British cask ale production, CAMRA was needed because behind the scenes industrial brewing was looking to standardize the product ever more, filter and pasteurize it and render it easy to handle. They won that fight with bottled beer in the early 1900's.

And given the difficulties of serving cask beer at its best, you can argue there was a need for CAMRA before 1960, before 1900, and always, since by its nature the product is delicate and easy to get wrong and needs support to be at its best. One thinks of campaigns (not always successful) to preserve the character of a great British cheese, say, well all the more justified for something as inherent to British history as beer.

I think it would muddy the mandate to campaign for other styles of beer and in the end it wouldn't be clear what CAMRA really stands for, thus endangering its future in a way sticking to its knitting would not.

That is my view but it is an organizational issue for CAMRA to decide. I take the point about the desirability not to alienate younger members but good communications should be able to address this I'd think.

Gary

py said...

cask ale sales have declined pretty much every year since camra was founded. Clearly we are doing something right!


Sorry, by "right" I of course mean "horribly wrong".

Even when there is no beer drunk in Britain at all, either cask or keg, at least the one remaining 85 year old member of CAMRA will be able to say they maintained a clear anti-keg mandate throughout.

Gary Gillman said...

I think though of the point Michael Jackson made many years ago: but for CAMRA, there would likely be no cask ale at all. That is a very important point. Even if its market share is halved in the next 10 years (but I wouldn't assume that), it is worthwhile that CAMRA will exist to permit this level of survival. maybe CAMRA itself will get smaller but its essential mission will have been preserved.

From an organizational standpoint, any group wants to grow, but it has to balance the potential benefits of changing its mission against a longer-term perception that it has no clear focus, doesn't stand for anything specific, which itself could lead to disinterest and demise.

Gary

Gary

Rob Nicholson said...

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the work done in the past was highly praiseworthy. But that *was* the past.

You reiterate what Cookie said earlier:

a) change the campaign too much and you risk loosing the current active members holding the thing together with no guarantee that the change would bring in more active members

b) leave it as it is and accept active membership will wither and die or at least be much reduced

The former is high risk with no guarantee of success whereas the later is much more likely but seems so much like giving up. It certainly may harm other campaigning operations which benefit from high engagement and vocal membership.

Rock and hard place?

py said...

It is this obsession with market share is the problem. Apparently we see it as a success if every year less and less people drink cask ale, as long as people are stopping drinking keg beer even quicker.

The way we act and talk, you'd think we're not the campaign for real ale at all, we're the campaign against keg beer. Its embarrassing, shortsighted and counterproductive.

I'd rather see cask ale numbers go up as part of a growing market, even if it means losing percentage share of the beer market. Anyone who thinks differently doesn't really have the best interests cask ale at heart.

Gary Gillman said...

I don't see it as a rock and a hard place. CAMRA is a campaign, that means it works by advocacy, PR. It needs to get out and win younger members but also members of all ages and backgrounds. It can hold comparative tastings, educational seminars, historical discussions (give Cornell or Pattinson a shout), issue press releases, do all the things a lobby knows how to do to influence people.

Jackson said another thing I remember: how the English can be insouciant of their best traditions at least until the "Dunkirk spirit" arises, which is what led to CAMRA. That spirit needs to be renewed from time to time.

CAMRA is not part of government, it doesn't have to please a majority of people or tastes. But it should fight for what it believes in, and the recent spate of fizzy London Murkys and that kind of beer may be a flash in the pan. Cask ale is much older than that, especially when made with traditional English hops, and has the imprimatur of some distinguished voices even well-before the 1970's, extending to eminences such as George Saintsbury (better known for his wine writing).

Cask ale is part of gastronomy, in a word. London Murky isn't, not yet.

Gary

Rob Nicholson said...

>It needs to get out and win younger members but also members of all ages and backgrounds.

Nobody is disagreeing with you but currently this is clearly *not* happening. You only have to look at the Facebook picture of all the CAMRA regional directors & members of the NE on a bus last weekend to realise that the active membership in CAMRA is much older than it was in the earlier years of the campaign. It's mainly the same people at the helm and that should ring alarm bells for any organisation unless one is happy for that situation to lead to its logical conclusion.

CAMRA overall membership is good, beer drinking is increasingly seen as cool by younger people but that is not causing them to rush to take over from the old guard who actually do the hard work of running CAMRA.

>That spirit needs to be renewed from time to time.

True but we're struggling to determine who is the new enemy.

We'd be having this same debate even if Craft Keg had never existed - the "Volunteer" initiative pre-dates all of this.

But those devil's advocates of us go "Hmm, craft keg - mainly quality stuff produced by smaller brewers, I wonder if we embraced that whether we'd ensure longevity for CAMRA". I admit I don't know the answer.

It could just be that we've run our course and accept the inevitability of it all. Like the Knights of Camelot, CAMRA fades under a hill waiting for when it's needed again ;-)

Curmudgeon said...

I don't think anyone is arguing for CAMRA to actively embrace and champion non-real draught and bottled beers. But the current attitudes of either "they are all crap" or "they are nothing to do with us" are becoming ever more unhelpful and unrepresentative of the way beer enthusiasm is going in this country.

Today it was announced that Spoons are going to be stocking American craft cans, which aren't exactly going to appeal to the stereotypical Carlsberg or JS Extra Smooth drinker.

Gary Gillman said...

I do note that the definition of keg beer in this section is partly outdated:

http://www.camra.org.uk/aboutale

Some keg beer, e.g. Guinness and the cream or smooth flow type of ale, meets the definition but most fizzy craft beer (i.e., non-cask) isn't pasteurized and much of it still has live yeast, though whether the yeast is working at cold dispense temperatures is debatable.

This section should IMO be updated to explain why cask ale differs from even the new style of keg beer.

Gary

Alinamass said...
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