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Author Topic: What qualifies as "Real Ale"?  (Read 2770 times)

Offline charles1968

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Re: What qualifies as "Real Ale"?
« Reply #15 on: December 13, 2015, 03:31:26 pm »
CAMRA was set up to protect small independent breweries that produced what we would now call craft beers. Traditional English pubs typically had a range of local bitters served by hand pump (beer engine) from casks containing live naturally carbonated beer.


When beer drinkers started turning to lagers in the 70s and 80s, regional breweries started going bust and selling up to conglomerates. CAMRA tried to stop that to preserve the many interesting and unique regional beers. They used a definition of real ale that was based on the different means of serving traditional bitter and continentnal lager, but it's out of date now in my opinion. Also the trend has swung the other way - lagers are now seen old-fashioned, craft beers are very trendy, and the diversity of beers on sale is now enormous. Lots of the regional beers still exist, though some have changed a lot over the decades.

CAMRA's definition here:
http://www.camra.org.uk/about-real-ale