CAMRA founder visits THE BREWERY TAP

FORTY years ago a young journalist and three friends set out on a mission to improve their nation’s beer.
To celebrate this special anniversary, founder Graham Lees talks about how CAMRA was set up following a pub crawl in Chester and how he visited THE BREWERY TAP to recreate the birth of the organisation.

AS a young Chester Chronicle journalist Graham Lees got some of his best stories while having a pint in one of the city’s many historic pubs.
A lifelong fan of decent ale, his growing disappointment at the beer served to him during his time as a junior reporter led him to become the driving force behind a new organisation which has led a 40 year campaign to revive the greatest of British brews.
With the help of three friends, Graham founded CAMRA, the Campaign for the Revitalisation of Ale, now known to its 120,000 members as the Campaign for Real Ale, often described as one of the most successful consumer groups in Europe.
To celebrate its 40^th anniversary, Graham joined fellow CAMRA members to retrace the Chester pub crawl where the idea to improve British ale was first discussed.
In March 1971, Graham’s drinking pals, fellow journalists, Bill Mellor and Michael Hardman, and brewery worker, Jim Makin, met Graham in Chester the night before they left for a boozy break to Ireland.
During a pub crawl around Chester to mark the start of their holiday, the friends came back to their usual lament of the lack of good quality and varied beers coming out of the pumps.
Graham, 63, who now lives in Bangkok where he is an editor for the Associated Press, said: “There was a monopoly on beer at that time in Chester by the brewery Greenall Whitley who were based in Warrington and owned many of the pubs in the city.
“So there was not a lot of choice at all and the beer really wasn’t that great either.”
During their trip to the Emerald Isle the following day, things didn’t improve with little else being on offer but Guinness and other stouts.
Returning to Chester, it was Graham who seriously mooted the idea that something should be done to improve beer in Britain and his friends vowed to join his fight.
Graham said: “I always say CAMRA may have been conceived in Ireland but its gestational period was definitely in Chester. It was where we seriously decided that something must be done.”
That something has now turned into one of the most successful consumer organisations in Europe which campaigns diligently for real ale, real pubs and consumer rights.
With more than 120,000 members, the organisation is made up of 200 branch committees all over the UK, many of which run their own beer festivals, publish local newsletters and run social events. It is governed by a voluntary, unpaid, national executive, elected by the membership.
Graham said: “We didn’t have a clue what to do at first when we decided we should do something more serious. People kept saying to us well you are talking about how things need to change but what are you actually doing about it?
“The only model we had for the organisational structure was the National Union of Journalists which I was active in at the time so we used the idea of having branches and area organisers and that really formed the backbone of CAMRA.”
In 1972, Graham moved to the south east to work on an evening paper, leaving the Cheshire region of the organisation in the safe hands of his friends Laurie Hughes and Carl Butler.

His move down south is the reason why CAMRA’s headquarters are now in St Albans, Hertfordshire.
Graham believes his biggest success with the organisation is getting it off the ground in the first place.
He said: “We were doing it all part time at first while we were working. We just wanted to save traditional cask beer from extinction and not just save it but invigorate it too.”
With more than 800 small and micro breweries now supplying all over the UK, it would seem CAMRA’S original aim has been realised and while it is hard to source real ale in Bangkok, Graham is very partial to trying as many as he can when he comes back to the UK to visit friends.
Graham said: “It is very difficult to name a favourite beer because there are just so many to choose from now which is great. I do like a dry hoppy beer or a stout in the winter.”
There was ample beer for him to try when he took part in the Founder’s Crawl to celebrate the 40^th birthday of CAMRA which took in 12 of the city’s hostelries and ended in one of Chester’s newest real ale pubs, The Brewery Tap in Lower Bridge Street.
The Brewery Tap, which is the first pub to belong to the Chester brewery, Spitting Feathers, opened its doors in November 2008 in one of the most historic buildings in Chester. Dating back to the 1600s, the bar is housed in is an old Jacobean banqueting hall complete with an enormous sandstone fireplace.
Although it wasn’t around for the fledgling CAMRA crowd the first time round, organisers of the crawl felt it was the perfect venue for the final stop, not least because it is the current Regional Pub of the Year for Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales.
Manager of the Brewery Tap, John Thomas, said: “It was great to welcome the crawl here as their final stop.
“With little or no choice in the early days of CAMRA, it was interesting to hear that 40 years on, over 40 different real ales were on offer at the pubs visited, so it goes to prove how pubs like The Brewery Tap are more appreciated than ever.”
As an honorary lifetime member of CAMRA, Graham still keeps his eye on the organisation and the issues it continues to face.
He said: “I think the big issue now is to save the British pub from extinction. If we haven’t got any pubs, then we do not have any real ale. We will continue to campaign for help from the Government for better forms of tax relief so it gives small breweries and pubs like Spitting Feathers and The Brewery Tap a chance to grow and develop.”
When asked why beer should have its very own campaign group, he said: “A decent pint is part of the British way of life and the pub is a focal point for many communities. Beer is a national drink and it has been around for hundreds of years for very good reasons.
“And of course, it is very pleasurable.”
To find out more about CAMRA, go to www.camra.org.uk