I've been busy today editing our local CAMRA magazine, More Beer, but Twitter has caught my eye in between times.
Firstly a spat this morning about how CAMRA is supposedly supporting Brexit and a subsequent stream of CAMRA bashing and quite a number of age related hate posts. Funny how we all know what sort of things are completely unacceptable to say openly and we are pounced on for the slightest transgression, but when it comes to CAMRA, it seems all rules are suspended and ageism is deemed by many to be unremarked and tolerable. On the substance of the matter, CAMRA centrally may have at best expressed something badly and at worst been incompetent, but surely a little show of moderation in responding to this would be better? Yes us over sixties may well all be "c*nts", but I've news for the young - that's the direction you are headed in too and trust me, things will look a lot different when you get there - though getting some practice in for your future role might be beneficial I suppose.
This leads me on to my second thing. At the Manchester Beer and Cider Festival I had a long conversation with John Keeling (ex Fullers), not only about the sale to Asahi, but what might be done to protect cask beer in light of falling market share. I posted a small summary of it on Twitter:
This makes a lot of sense as it isn't price per se that makes brewing cask beer unattractive - it is brewer's margin. As John Keeling explained it to me, 100,000 barrels at (say) 20p a pint less duty is big bucks for a brewer. Brewing more of it in such a case would suddenly make commercial sense. I think he is on to something here and CAMRA should explore this further.Better to campaign for a preferential duty rate for cask beer on the basis it is an endangered indigenous product perhaps? @FullersJohn makes a good case for this to encourage more cask production and increase brewers margin on the product.— Tandleman (@tandleman) February 18, 2019
I liked too a tweet about a pub not a million miles form my London place. The East London Advertiser highlights the case of a pub which has live music and has successfully applied to have a deed of easement agreement to prevent future complaints about noise from live music when a new block of flats is built nearby. This is a good thing. To my mind if you buy a flat next to a pub that has loud live music, then that's your lookout. Affecting the business of a venue by complaining about noise that was there before you showed up is pretty unfair in my view, so good for Tower Hamlets. Others will hopefully copy.
The last thing that caught my eye was the somewhat surprising news that after only a year in the job, CAMRA is losing its Chairman Jackie Parker.
Is there more to this than meets the eye? Dunno, but that may well come out, one way or another, in Dundee at the AGM and Conference.CAMRA has announced its new chairman elect: Nik Antona will take on leadership of the organisation following the @CAMRA_AGM in April 2019.— CAMRA (@CAMRA_Official) February 18, 2019
Nik takes over from Jackie Parker, who is stepping down after a year in the role, and after nine years as a National Executive member. pic.twitter.com/yC9ITfqD1m
Right. Having got that off my chest, back to More Beer editing.
Hopefully more posts next week when my magazine has gone to bed.
Meantime off to London tomorrow for a few days, with a visit to Canterbury on the side.
