Compulsory Post This Year At The Final Opportunity

The Future

 

It's not been the best of years, has it?

Remember ten years ago?  Beer wasn't everywhere then, but it was spreading.  New micropubs opening at those empty units in town, new breweries opening in the nearby industrial estate.  Even hitherto dull locals were expanding their ranges to get a piece of the beer geek pie.


Like all new things, though, it eventually became old.  The peak had passed by the end of 2018 and the scene was slowly declining until we hit March 2020.  And we know what happened then.

After we emerged, blinking, into the streets where we'd barely set foot for a year, it was found that it wasn't what we thought it was.  No, there wasn't an enormous market for microbrewed craft beer of uncertain quality.  No, not everyone wanted to sit on hard stools in draughty, haphazardly constructed bars.  And no, there wasn't any money in it unless you were (a) lucky and (b) flogged yourself to death.

Halfway throught the third decade of the 21st century, a lot of people are now scrabbling.  Licenced premises are closing by the score every month and breweries and distros are retrenching. Beer is supposed to be fun, and fun is nowhere to be found these days.  Taking the piss seems, well, a bit harsh.

Is there any hope? Dunno about you, but I ain't seeing it.  Easy for me, stood at the bar of the Black Horse with 10 cask lines to choose from, but is that really representative of the beer and pub scene in 2025?  I doubt it.  If things will ever get better, they will surely have to get worse first.

The Swivel Eyed Loons

The Conservative Party have got into trouble recently.  Not for the things they should be getting into trouble for eg. iniquitous charges, workfare slavery or their austerity programme not working.  No, apparently one of Dave Cameron's mates has referred to Tory grass-roots activists as "swivel eyed loons".

It seems the Party leadership (consisting as it does of Dave's Eton schoolfriends) do not particularly represent the views of the average Tory activist (aged 68 and living in a Home Counties suburb).  The furore over gay marriage is a symptom of this.  Apparently, Cameron & co are a smug metropolitan elite whose views are out of touch with their street-tramping and envelope-stuffing volunteers.

If you read certain things, namely the lettercolumn of What's Brewing, CAMRA's executive committee are guilty of similar things.  One of Mike Benner's main selling points to the non-beer world is that he doesn't look like and sound like a stereotypical CAMRA member.  And, I'm sorry about this John Clarke et al. , but CAMRA members do have a bit of an image problem.  Ask any real ale pub landlord, and he'll regale you with tales of beards coming in, asking to sample all six beers, buying a half, complaining about short measures/temperature, and buggering off to the next pub to do the same.  One barman told me he'd put the price of a pint up for CAMRA members if he could.

How true these tales are I'm not sure.  Every self-selecting organisation has its git elements.  But what makes CAMRA different is that its membership has increased over the last 5 years (by something like 50%, I think), whereas that for political parties has declined.  The Conservative party is down to its hardcore vocal activists who probably don't represent what most Tory voters actually think on a lot of issues.  CAMRA's aged hardcore, while vocal, are increasingly being drowned out by newer (and I use this term advisedly as most new members are still over 35) voices. The whole anti-craft keg thing at the 2013 AGM was a mere raging against the dying light.   I believe craft keg will be totally accepted in the next decade, even if the committee have to amend the definition of "real ale".

Mike Benner, Colin Valentine etc. may not be to the taste of a lot of hardcore, 40-year veteran Beard Club members, but they are the future.  Whatever that may be.

Note : The title of this post is a quote from the media coverage of the Conservative Party, and is used as a description of this phenomenon.  I am not calling CAMRA members "swivel eyed loons".  Thank you.