Coming soon -

The History of CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale)

In 1971, four friends in their twenties with a keen taste for beer, looked forward to sampling various brews during a short holiday. What they found was that the beer they drank along the way was tasteless and dead. Since the 1930's, the mighty brewing industry embraced the 'Keg' technique of filtering, pasturising and pressurising beer in kegs to increase the shelf life. Although good for mass production, this beer no longer had life. The complex flavours and body was completely removed, leaving a fizzy, bland fluid.

Our four young upstarts felt the heart had been ripped out of the ancient British craft of Brewing and in an impulsive gesture, decided to form their own little protest group. With the constitution written on the back of an envelope, they put the word out amongst friends. Within 12 months 1000 people had signed up. In 2010, CAMRA had a membership of over 115,000 and is still growing.

In the 40 year history, CAMRA has become the UK's largest single issue consumer group, single handedly forced a major industry to change direction and successfully persuaded government to change laws.  At the time, those four individuals, (no longer so young) had no idea their quirky group would generate such an explosive response from similarly minded folk from all over the world. But what they started has saved a huge part of British heritage from certain extinction. For that one reason, we believe this is a story worth telling.

DVD release date - March 2011.