'Micro brewers are the best thing to happen to British brewing' - Your Letters: February 15

CAMRA FIGHTING FOR LOCAL ALES

Sad message from a friend, on holiday in Keswick. He had just drunk his last pint of Jennings, a fate shared by drinkers of Banks’s Mild and other cask beers of Carlsberg Marston. This situation is almost a facsimile of the seventies as Carlsberg close breweries, restrict choice and concentrate production at the Northampton keg factory.

In 1971 I did a cycling tour of Norfolk where I discovered I could drink anything I liked providing it was the gas ridden belly wash manufactured by Watneys. Competition, choice and quality completely wiped out. Courage, Whitbread, Allied and others were doing exactly the same in other parts of the country.

Thankfully the situation is not the same as it was back then. We now have the old established family brewers and hundreds of micro brewers. The micro brewers are the best thing to happen to British brewing since the discovery of the hop. They have driven choice, quality and innovation.

Why now do we have such a magnificent alternative to the likes of Carlsberg? Fifty years ago it was unthinkable for anyone to set up business as a brewer. Then, in 1971, Camra was formed specifically to save cask beer (real ale) and what was left of the independent brewers.

Camra gave drinkers a chance to rebel against the national domination of the big brewers.

Cask ale became an expanding market and in response people actually started to set up business as brewers again. Around 3,000 truly independent breweries eventually emerged producing a huge range of beers.