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

In June, regular correspondent DS of Chelmsford is bemoaning choice, too many ‘unknown and often undrinkable’ beers. So give up now all you new brewers, DS wants to stick with what he knows. It was like that back in the seventies, ah, the good old days.

But what of the kidz? FC of Whitley Bay thinks that left well alone the ‘youth will embrace the values of their elders’ when they are ready. I don’t think FC has had a chance to visit the Bermondsey beer mile yet.

The voice of reason comes DH, president of a Uni real ale society who identifies their enemy as bland, flavourless beers and reads CAMRA’s original mission as giving consumers ‘greater choice and quality’.

In July, carbon dioxide and the dreaded ‘c’ word get a proper hammering. SB of Quedgeley says the enemy is keg and lager. So basically it’s back to WW2, the Germans and their lager are the enemy. That’s how many years of brewing tradition gone west then? LW of Worcester thinks that a ‘focus on quality’ is a bad thing. Oh dear.

Honestly, when you read stuff like that I really do consider leaving CAMRA but then you read Bob Southwell, the Volunteer Voice this month. Whilst not endorsing the ‘c’ beer revolution he does recognise the outdated ideas of CAMRA in some respects. Under the heading ‘Have we just become moaning relics’ he declares the need for action before CAMRA has the same fate as dinosaurs. Articles like this give me hope.

One of these days CAMRA is going to have aggravate a large minority of its members (and risk their resignations) in order to progress and increase membership. Or else another organisation will be more attractive and CAMRA will end up like the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood.