It’s an event where I would have expected to be having a few beers in a pub with fellow CAMRA members. To be at home drinking a bottled beer because all the pubs are closed is something I would not have anticipated.

Before the Covid crisis the real ale scene looked to be on the up. There were over 1,800 breweries in the UK and new pubs were opening particularly Micropubs. The Micropub provides a new experience for the drinker, being compact in size but offering an interesting range of beers including real ale.

I remember when I first joined CAMRA in the early 80’s when the beer scene was dominated by the six big breweries which supplied 75% of the market. Of the big six breweries the one beer I would seek out was Courage Best. But the breweries I most enjoyed at the time was Youngs as there were two good Youngs pubs where I lived and Harvey’s which I drank while being a student in Brighton. Harvey’s is still the same brewery it once was but Young’s sold their brewery and their beers were never the same when brewed at a different brewery.

Over the years there have been many changes to the to the pub business including all day drinking, the breaking of the tie between the pub and the breweries (leading to the induction of guest beers) and a ban of smoking indoors. CAMRA started to organise beer festivals allowing beer drinkers to sample beers from all over the UK.

The future post COVID is uncertain. Let’s hope that all the pubs and breweries survive but there are bound to be some casualties. People need to get used to going to crowed places before the pubs get to the same level of business that there was before the current crises. But there are encouraging signs, pubs are already taking bookings for when they will be able to have people in their gardens and they are proving to be very popular. Maybe the British public will have a better appreciation of the pub post lockdown.

What ever happens pubs and the real ale they serve are not going away. CAMRA will continue to campaign for that. The next fifty years are going to just as interesting and challenging as the past fifty years.

Let me know your stories and memories you have of the past fifty years. Please send them to newsandale@shb.camra.org.uk.

For those of you interested in reading the history of CAMRA then there is a book called ‘50 years of CAMRA’ by Laura Hadland. Available on the CAMRA shop.