retiredmartin

April brings the joy of the annual CAMRA conference, this year from St Albans (aka Greater Luton), a chance to assess whether the Fighting Cocks really does have the oldest beer in the country.

CAMRA, once again, stands at a crossroads. Can it attract young (under-62) members with its exciting programme of motions focused on Welsh language leaflets, restoring a loss making beer festival, and making the “Pub of the Year 2025” the “Pub of the Year 2026” ?

At least our wonderful Chairman is young, providing exemplary leadership despite the setback of being an Arsenal supporter and an early career in Stafford. And tomorrow CAMRA launches a second guide to Manchester’s top beer,

this time hopefully with a greater focus on the many craft beer gems in Weaste overlooked in 2023.

This year’s bright-eyed candidates for the CAMRA National Executive include some folk who appear more interested in supporting pubs than subsiding beer festivals, which will never do.

I applaud the candidates for standing, but they should be warned that a love of pubs beer is irrelevant in these days of Information Governance, Crisis Management and cyfieithu iaith Gymraeg.

The really big decisions are best left to the humble members who pay their annual subs. And the leeches life members.

We’ve been asked to design the cover for this years Good Beer Guide.

Well, what cover would make you go to the pub ?

As in 2005 a nice, uncontroversial photo of hand pumps in a country inn ?

Or something which speaks of the joy of being on a crowded train at 7am with a knitted vegetable and a set of coloured marker pens, on your way to find a (still) closed micropub in Skipton ?

I asked ChatGPT to produce a mock-up of a BRAPA cover (top). Apparently it can’t make images of real people, which I hadn’t thought would be a problem with Simon.

But my inspiration came from an unlikely source, in the Gents at the Zappa bar in Cologne.

You can vote for my cover design in person at the CAMRA AGM in St Albans on 18th April, at the conclusion of the emergency debate on the definition of real cider.