jj@alice.UUCP (07/17/85)
I've just returned from England and Scotland (two different places...) and I find that I can no longer stand the stuff that they sell in the stores here. A review of about 15 different kinds of beer will have to wait, but in short, the cheaper, local beers in the UK are quite good, and the "fancy" beers are VERY good. The only beer that I didn't like that I had in the US was Tennant's EXPORT, brewed for the US market. A friend of mine commented that there was something called the "Campaign for Real Ale" in the UK. Does anyone know about it. I'm all dunn complaining for now. -- TEDDY BEARS MAY BECOME EXTINCT! HELP AN ENDANGERED SPECIES! "It was great when it all began, ..." (ihnp4/allegra)!alice!jj
9234dwz@houxf.UUCP (The Rev. Peak) (07/18/85)
CAMRA (CAMpaign for Real Ale) was formed as a
grass roots organization in the mid-late 60's
to protest the increasing lack of traditional
draught ale/beer.
In the 50s & 60s most of the small breweries
were being bought buy a small number of large
breweries. This was done to gain control of
the public houses [bars] which are either
affiliated to one brewery or are termed "free
houses". Once the brewery gained control of
the smaller breweries supplies generally what
happened was that the major brewery gradually
(sometimes not so gradually) introduced their
beers to replace the existing beers.
Around the same time pressurised kegs of beer
become more economic than traditional wooden
kegs, less upkeep, longer life etc. and so
over a relatively short period of time the
types of beer & ale being served in your 'local'
changed pretty dramatically.
Back to CAMRA, founded I believe by college
students searched out the smaller breweries
who still served beer in traditional wooden
kegs and promoted them through newsletters
and eventually a magazine(I believe).
Bus trips to distant pubs were a frequent part
of activities by the group I was associated
with.
From these modest roots, these traditional
breweries got a new lease of life and some even
expanded operations. It didn't take long for the
major breweries to spot a good thing and soon most
of them were offering a superior traditional
type of draught beer along with their usual
swill.
NB - my favorite ale from CAMRA days was Gales
Prize Olde Ale from Gales Brewery,Horndean,Hants.
available at Gales pubs in SE England.
ex- CAMRA member
(admitedly not terribly active,
I just went along to party ! )
Dave Peak
@ ihnp4!hotel!dxp
"All the net's a stage and all the men and women merely ham actors !"
- Rev Peak (apologies to Bill S.)jj@alice.UUCP (07/18/85)
Hmmm. The story of CAMRA is quite interesting. I wonder if there are enough beer lovers who read net.wines to make a difference. Probably not. Oh well. If anyone out there appreciates good beer and has a lot of spare time (I don't have a little, let alone a lot, of spare time), let us know. -- TEDDY BEARS MAY BECOME EXTINCT! HELP AN ENDANGERED SPECIES! "It was great when it all began, ..." (ihnp4/allegra)!alice!jj
nxn@ihuxm.UUCP (Dave Nixon) (07/19/85)
> [....] > A friend of mine commented that there was something called the > "Campaign for Real Ale" in the UK. Does anyone know about it. > [....] > (ihnp4/allegra)!alice!jj Real Ale: nasty warm sticky stuff with various forms of pond life in it. John "still looking for a better slogan" Cleese. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) took off in the early '70s as a grass roots style backlash against the large brewing conglomerates. Many years ago, all beer was brewed locally, and was delivered to pubs in wooden barrels. The publican then conditioned the beer in the cellar, a tricky process that took several days, before serving it. Along comes big business, and figures that it would save a lot of money if the beer were ready to serve immediately it was delivered to the pub, and didn't spoil even if kept by the veriest idiot. So they pasteurize it and filter it and kill off the yeast and do other unmentionable things to it so that it's stable. They also figure that it's silly to use the traditional hand pumps to move the beer from barrel to glass when they can use carbon dioxide inside the barrel to propel it. The result is keg beer, which tastes like chemical stew, and bloats the most well trained stomach after as little as two pints. As businesses will, the breweries gradually got fewer and larger, and keg beer became the rule. At some point, a few beer enthusiasts got together and formed CAMRA, which supported small independent breweries that used traditional methods. Various activities ensued, all involving consumption of liberal quantities of the right stuff, and slowly the word got around. They published the real ale guide, listing pubs that had seen the light, and soon pubs all over the land sprouted "Real Ale Served Here" signs. The phrase "original gravity" reappeared in the dictionaries, and eventually, the big brewers were forced into producing traditional brews. ---- / / \ | C/O | | / 2| \ / / ---- Dave Nixon AT&T, Naperville, IL ihnp4!ihuxm!nxn
cv@linus.UUCP (Chris J. Valas) (07/25/85)
-=-
I was back in England a year ago, and a friend of mine took me to the
opening of a new pub. This place exhibited the latest effect of the CAMRA
backlash against the major breweries. They had installed a 'micro-brewery'
on the premises, and were going to produce their own bitter right there!
I tasted lots of the first batch: it was clear, full-bodied and made a
tremendous change from U.S. beers. Or, as my friend eloquently declaimed,
while squinting through his third bitter, "That's a lovely pint, that
is..."
-=-
Chris J. Valas {decvax,utzoo,philabs,security,allegra,genrad}!linus!cv
-=-
Wine is fine, but beer is best.reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (07/28/85)
Here in the neighborhood of Stanford there are not one but two good brands of beer. The first, Anchor Brewing Co. makes Steam Beer, Porter, and Liberty Ale, all of which are quite different from another and quite wonderful in different ways. Of these, Anchor Steam comes closest to being an American-style beer. The second, Palo Alto Brewing Co. makes "London Real Ale", which is an English-style still beer. Although Anchor Steam is available nationwide (I have seen it in Cambridge Mass. and Austin Tx.), London Real Ale is not available outside of the local delivery area here, and it is only available in bulk (kegs and 1-gallon packages). I have a gallon of London Real Ale in my refrigerator right now and I think I'm going to go draw a glass, warm it up a little, and drink it. As final frosting on the cake, I met some people a few weeks ago who have just received a license from the appropriate authorities to open a tavern that brews its own beer. I have had several bottles of beer made by these folks, and it is a rich Scottish-style ale; they will probably open their tavern somewhere within 2 or 3 miles of Stanford by the middle of next year. -- Brian Reid decwrl!glacier!reid Stanford reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA