British beer: a storm in a pint glass

These should be the best of times for the Campaign for Real Ale. In many ways, they are: with more than 120,000 members, the organisation has never been so well-supported while next month’s Great British Beer Festival (GBBF), which Camra has run for 34 years, is expected to be better attended than ever before. Good beer, it appears, is back on the national agenda, industrial lager is engaged in an (as yet, slow) retreat and Camra can take much of the credit.

As ever, though, things are not quite as peachy as they seem. The microbrewery revolution of the past ten years (Britain now has approaching 800 breweries) has seen an explosion in not only cask brewers but also brewers who, conversely, reject Camra’s central tenets. Indeed, a number of new brewers believe the organisation – set up in 1971 to support traditional British cask beer – stifles innovation and promotes mediocrity.

One such is Scotland’s Brewdog (who, it must be said, have plenty of critics of their own). They’re advocates of what Americans call ‘craft beer’ – a term that suffers for the lack of a simple definition but which appears to mean good, innovative beer made on a human scale – and critics of cask ale (which, nonetheless, they brew, although they put far more of their beer in kegs). They’ve long been vocal opponents of Camra. Speaking to the Independent last November, co-founder James Watt said: “I’ve been to a few Camra beer festivals in Scotland and I wanted to shoot myself after 10 minutes – there were bagpipes, it was so clichéd and stuffy.”

It was a surprise, then, when it emerged earlier this year that BrewDog would be at this year’s GBBF. It seemed the two sides had kissed and made up. That is, until last week, when the Fraserburgh brewers revealed they would not, after all, be appearing at the great fete of British beer. The reasons for that are disputed, but they go to the heart of the row splitting British brewing. The likes of Brewdog believe Camra should embrace all types of quality beer; Camra say their role is to promote cask-conditioned, or ‘real’ ale (cask real ale contains live yeast and undergoes secondary fermentation, as opposed to keg, which doesn’t – although sometimes it does. Confused?).

The organiser of the GBBF, Marc Holmes, says that the fault for Brewdog not appearing at GBBF lies with the brewer. Both sides acknowledge that there were differences over the size of the kegs to be used (Camra wanted them to be bigger: “I said to James, ‘come down this year. Come and see our bars and see how impractical it would be to have the smaller containers, because of the amount of work’,” says Holmes. “We run a tight ship”), but Holmes says Watt failed to meet a deadline for payment, which fell either last Thursday or Friday, depending on who you believe.

“We said OK within the deadline, and they cancelled it anyway,” insists Watt. Holmes’ account differs. “It got to the point last week where deadlines were approaching and I sent him an email about 1pm last Wednesday, saying ’you’ve got until 12pm Thursday to agree to this beer order,’” he says. “12pm Thursday, I had one of our staff sent the cancellation letter. He emailed at 11am on Friday saying ‘we accept the order; we’ll pay the money now’. But by then it was too late.”

Plenty will blame Brewdog, pointing to their propensity for promotional stunts. Watt (below) denies any malice. “It’s not what we planned,” he says. “We wanted to stir the controversy up at the festival. We didn’t want to go up in flames before we got there. We’d have been there and in our usual style, we’d have launched some pretty insane beers – we categorically wanted to be there. We were going to launch some beers that would have caused some buzz and excitement.”

Others will accuse Camra of conservatism, but Holmes says he bent over backwards to accommodate BrewDog. “At no point did I say they couldn’t have their keg beer,” he says. “I didn’t even disagree when they said they wanted to launch their new beer with a stuffed deer’s head on the pump, which I knew would cause problems for some people. There would have been complaints from staff and from customers but I didn’t even say no to that because that’s what Brewdog are about.”

Whoever is to blame, however, the difference of opinion seems pretty entrenched. What constitutes a beer festival is clearly a bone of contention. “I wouldn’t have such an issue if it was called the great British cask ale festival,” says Watt. “If you’re going to call yourself the Great British Beer Festival, how can you exclude some of the best beers currently being brewed in Britain – Meantime can’t get their beers in, Lovibond’s can’t get their beer in.”

“It has been [called the GBBF] for 35 years and I’m only 41 myself,” says Holmes. “Why they called it the GBBF as opposed to the great British real ale festival, I don’t know. Maybe because it sounds better. I can’t say why. It would be stupid to change it now, because its such a well-known event.’”

Holmes points out that Camra policy is defined by its members. “If James wants to join Camra – which he would have had to do to work on the bar this year – and put a motion to the AGM next year, in Torquay in April, saying Camra should change its raison d’etre to campaign for ‘good beer’, good luck to him. Until then, we’re the Campaign for Real Ale.”

A row over how beer is served will inevitably sound strange – even a little sad – to those not intimate with British beer’s traditions, but it clearly matters. This difference of opinion reflects a wider distrust, and it would not be a great surprise if a rival event to the GBBF was launched at some point in the near future.

“A beer festival should be about stylistic diversity,” says Watt. “If you go to a beer festival in America you’re going to get everything from a mild ale to a pale ale to a spontaneously fermented lambic, a double IPA, an oak-aged imperial stout. There are beers across a massive flavour spectrum, rather than everything being a 3.5 to 4.5 per cent bitter.”

Holmes is equally adamant. “I’ve drunk what they call keg beers,” he says. “Not Brewdog, but some of the others – and yes, they’re very nice. I’m not saying all keg beer is crap. I’m sure there’s an argument for it but as far as Camra is concerned the definition clearly states it has to be cask conditioned – and that’s what I have to stick to.”

Follow me on twitter at @Will_Hawkes

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