Providing much needed help for the writers to What’s Brewing.

It’s all rather mundane stuff in August to be honest. The ‘star letter’ from A C-C of Newhall is particularly avant garde though, ‘Internet vital to engage our younger members’ – apparently this is how the younger members communicate but sadly for most CAMRA members there is no description as to what this ‘internet’ is. I have a suspicion that computers could be involved. Seriously though, at their AGM they discover that 11 out of their 500 membership is active, and average age is 51. Nobody is surprised at this stat, but it is sad.

My theory is that all the writers are so old that the kids have flown the nest, grateful to get away. Hence they were on holiday during the submission time for last month – before the schools broke to get a good price. Pontins gets so crowded during the school hols. Now in the September edition we are back to good form.

KR of Beckenham thinks that CAMRA are ‘hell bent on supporting the micros to the detriment of the longer established brewers’. Quite so, who would want to drink a pint of something hand crafted a few miles away when there’s a good reliable pint of Greene King IPA on offer. NW of East London adds a new descriptor, ‘urine coloured’ – for modern pale ales presumably. I have yet to see breweries follow his lead in describing their beers thus, likewise the Farrow & Ball colour cards do not use this. Indeed it is confusing as from personal experience I have seen a number of hues. Several appear to think that CAMRA is becoming far to inclusive, no, not just a laissez faire attitude to craft keg bashing, but cider! Cider is clearly not real ale. AP of Hartlepool mentions ‘cider and other fringe drinks’, NM of Eastleigh suggests that cider drinkers should set up their own organisation.