God bless CAMRA: Making a political movement out of getting drunk

Feb 22 2009 by Mike Lockley, Sunday Mercury

IF I had a Fair Isle jumper and beard, I’d join the Campaign for Real Ale.

Real ale has been with us a long time. Medieval people used it instead of water, which must’ve made bath time a wow.

I’ve got a lot of time for beer. It’s helped ugly, overweight people like myself have sex for a very long time.

CAMRA, God bless ‘em, is the only pressure group to make drinking a political issue. Thanks to the organisation, I can down copious amounts of ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Chafed Nipple’ (gravity six per cent) on the premise I’m supporting traditional English pubs.

When I down so many that my forehead balances against the wall above the urinal, the traditional English pub supports me.

Real ale buffs make a beeline for the Drum and Monkey which serves an array of strange brews.

One super-strength beer tasted like Christmas pudding – and, just like the festive dessert, went up in flames if you held a naked flame too close.

Another was from a local ‘micro-brewery’, which is a tiny proper brewery. My, those dwarves know how to make beer. I’ll bet the barrels are the size of thimbles.

My Uncle Keith used to make his own beer, then progressed to making rum by packing a marrow with brown sugar and placing the bloated vegetable inside a surgical stocking.

He would then collect the sticky liquid as it slowly filtered through the stocking.

On reflection, it would’ve been better if nan had taken the stocking off first, but she didn’t mind. It was the month she had spend in the airing cupboard while the stuff fermented that really got her goat.

The CAMRA crowd demand answers from patrons to weird and wonderful questions. One asked what the gravity’s like. No different to anywhere else on Planet Earth, but after six pints walking does become a problem. A case of ‘one small step for man, two steps backward, one to the side and three forward for a Ruddles drinker’.

“Do you detect a haze?” asked one, holding a glass of amber nectar. Yes, it’s the heat coming off the radiator. Or the barmaid’s perfume.

“Oh yes,” enthused some bloke with bits of scratchings in his beard, “that is a real winter ale.”

I pointed out it was a pint of Fosters.

“Winter in Sydney, obviously,” he mumbled, helping himself to another handful of bar nibbles.

“Do you serve Perry?” someone asked. Not yet. He doesn’t turn 18 until July.

The local CAMRA branch stages ‘your hostelry needs you’ recruitment drives, dishing out newsletters in the pub, which is a wasted effort. We’re already in there.

If Benson and Hedges tried the same there would be hell to pay.

According to the newsletter, every month CAMRA members clamber on board a minibus and visit local inns: as many as seven in one night. I’d like to sign-up to one of those pub crawls.

“It is not a pub crawl,” insisted the miffed bearded beer expert. “Members visit the inns to monitor ambience, the bar food on offer and, of course, the quality of the real ale. We all wear t-shirts declaring where we’re from.”

It’s a stag night, then. He pointed out CAMRA members never drink to excess. Their loss. I’ll drink to anything.

I have fond memories of being asked to judge, along with a handful of experts, the speciality ales category at Wolverhampton beer festival.

We were introduced onto the podium while anxious brewers awaited our verdict.

Betwixt each fresh half-pint of super-strong ale, judges were handed a plate of water biscuits to cleanse the palate.

I began the session by making eloquent comments about ‘hints of caramel’, ‘nutty aftertastes’ and ‘rich colours’. Within half-an-hour, I had my arm round a head honcho from Banks’s. “You’re alright you are, mate,” I shouted

He protested I was spraying bits of water biscuit over him.

Organisers were so concerned, they called a taxi for me. In my confused state, I lurched from the venue – Wulfrun Hall – and slumped into the cab. “Wulfrun Hall, please,” I slurred.

“We’re there, mate,” replied the baffled driver.

“That’s absolutely fantastic,” I mumbled, “only next time, don’t drive so fast.”