Is CAMRA Losing Touch With Modern Beer..?

Is CAMRA losing touch with modern beer?

That question tends to provoke strong reactions — often before anyone actually listens to what’s being said.

Video is a blunt instrument. You have a finite amount of time, a pace to maintain, and an audience expectation to meet. Writing gives me the chance to slow things down and add a bit of nuance that doesn’t always survive the edit.

So here are a few thoughts that sit alongside the video rather than repeating it.

This isn’t anti-CAMRA

It’s important to say this clearly.

CAMRA matters. It has mattered enormously. Without it, a huge amount of Britain’s pub and beer heritage simply wouldn’t exist today.

But movements that succeed often struggle with the world they helped create.

The beer landscape CAMRA was designed to protect is no longer the beer landscape we actually live in — and pretending otherwise creates tension, not clarity.

The real issue isn’t beer style

Too much of the conversation gets dragged into cask vs keg, traditional vs modern, real ale vs “craft.”

That’s surface-level stuff.

The deeper issue is culture.

Who are pubs for now?
How do people actually drink?
What does a good pub experience look like in 2026, not 1986?

Those questions matter far more than dispense method.

Running a pub changes your perspective

Owning a pub gives you a slightly uncomfortable vantage point.

You see:

• Rising costs and shrinking margins

• Customers who want different things from the same space

• The difficulty of balancing tradition with survival

From that side of the bar, absolutist positions are rarely helpful.

Pubs don’t fail because they modernise.
They fail because they stop being relevant to the people around them.

Nostalgia is powerful — and dangerous

Nostalgia is one of the most powerful forces in pub culture. It’s also one of the most distorting.

Remembering great pubs from the past doesn’t automatically tell us how to build good ones now.

Some things are worth preserving fiercely.
Others need adapting — or letting go.

That doesn’t make you disloyal. It makes you honest.

Why this matters

This conversation isn’t about winning an argument online.

It’s about whether pubs remain living, social spaces — or become museums that people admire but don’t use.

CAMRA still has a role to play. A vital one, potentially.

But only if it’s prepared to listen as much as it campaigns.

What’s coming next

This video is the start of a short arc.

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be looking at:

• What CAMRA still gets right — and why it matters

• What a modern, forward-looking beer movement could look like

• How traditional pubs and modern drinking culture can actually coexist

Each video will be backed up here with context, reflections, and responses to the discussion that follows.

If you’ve got thoughts — especially thoughtful disagreement — the comments are open.

Quiet pint or loud debate.
Both are welcome.