CAMRA has been discussed and unfolded from different aspects within previous chapters, but there’s more to it as this chapter will start with a more thorough background history of CAMRA, pointing out and recognizing how their objectives and philosophy are connected to the rooted British pub culture and take them to where they are today. The chapter would focus on bringing out the production side of CAMRA and go on about how the campaign adapts different strategies in branding, from initially campaigning at the St. Alban’s headquarter to dipping into local and regional communities, as well as other promotional access to boost pub and beer awareness, which further create much broader and holistic vision for the movement to expand and thrive within UK and beyond.
CAMRA as New Sociation
“CAMRA was formed in March 1971 by four men from the North West who were opposed to the domination of the UK beer market via the Big Six National Brewers, that all of who thought it was about time to provide British beer drinkers better quality and variety at the bar. Today, CAMRA has approximately 165,000 members across the world, and has been described as the most indisputably influential single-issue consumer campaign in Europe.”
(http://www.camra.org.uk/what-is-camra) Underpinned by capitalism, the domination of the Big Six National Brewers back in the 70s producing low quality beer could be seen as a manifestation and an effect of modernity (Meethan, 2001, p. 56) and globalization that led to homogenization in beer market. CAMRA has been thriving to celebrate differences. Or to make it more specifically, they are creating a peculiar cultural taste that is rather selective and they are mostly doing so in to preserving a cultural heritage that is assumed to have been rapidly diminishing.
While the organization is particularly resentful of outside expropriation on pubs and against mass production of beer, CAMRA could be referred to what Urry (1996) pointed out as a ‘new sociation’. Such sociation isn’t just about building a traditional community, but rather to be seen as flexible, semi-detached collectivities that bond together to generate and consume a shared passion (Maffesoli, 1990). Such sociation provides important sites in which new kinds of identity can be experimented with (Urry, 1996), as well as concerned with issues in relation to heritage, environment, cultural preservation, community etc. But who’s participating? With CAMRA, it’s mostly in the interest of older generation instead of the young-centered that are fond of matters in relation to pub and beer. It’s the public impression that the campaign is deeply concerned by elders, mostly old men, who are diehards and often self-righteous in their ‘introspective’ lives, as described by Gilmour (2011, p.107):
CAMRA members sport beards, wear sandals and dress exclusively in brewery polo-shirts (which they normally get free). They eat lentils, are unkempt, have no sense of fashion or perambulatory co-ordination, they appear to collect carrier-bags and enjoy an arm’s-length association with manners.
Perhaps we may not see much of the pub issue and its prosperity growing on younger generation, but beer product and micro-brewery business is undoubtedly booming seen in several big-beer brewing countries. Beer should be given more attention as more than just beverage and production mechanism, but an identity and collective citizenship to represent local distinctiveness and conceive self-affirmation and self-actualization. Identity and taste are often strengthened by the flux of economic and social change (Cherni, 2001, p. 61). Bourdieu’s Distinction indicated that taste often encloses symbolic meaning, in which it is a combination and construction from both history and the society. Consumption on real ale has gone through transformation on both cultural and social levels. Beer used to be part of the working class culture in British society, whereas today, real ale has been finding its way back and manifested as a much more diverse appearance, as an
taste. Today, the campaign is more than just a movement dedicated to only saving pubs and ales, but also seen as a perspective and vision to establish distinctive taste that tend to create an alternative consumer culture and an experiential lifestyle. As there’s a crosscut between local distinctiveness and local communities in establishing a sustainable development and outlook, the next section would first unfold CAMRA’s specific endeavor on pub preservation and further disclose the relationship between local pub and community.
The Preservation Project: pub Heritage & historic interior
Pubs play two essential roles in the English society. Firstly, they provide a regulated and sociable place for people to enjoy alcohol, and secondly, they provide a meeting place for people to become as part of a social network. Pubs are essential local business within towns, villages and communities. The reason they are closed are either the owners are not making enough money or feel they could make more money by converting the building into other usage for other purposes.
It’s therefore in the interest of the pub-lovers in which they find the necessities to keep the pub well-used and profitable – which is why CAMRA seeks to promote pub profile through CAMRA’s Pub Heritage Group1, a group composed of mostly CAMRA members and some of the architectural historians passionate about preserving pub and the interior.
The main objectives of CAMRA’s Pub Heritage Group are to raise awareness and appreciation of pub interior of historic and architectural importance; to support and assist the campaign against the threat of pub conversion and destruction of historic interior and seek additional protection over the architecture, and the group is constantly eyeing for new candidates around the country to be listed in the inventory.
1 http://www.heritagepubs.org.uk/home/pubheritagegroup.asp
Historic pub interior ranges widely, from simple rural pubs to late-Victorian extravaganzas, from old to modern, various architectural styles are represented. The National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors2 lists all the interiors that CAMRA group consider ‘first division’ when it comes to pub preservation priorities, which currently comprises 278 pubs started in 1991, with entries fall in three categories:
• Pub interiors that have remained wholly or largely intact.
• Interiors retain exceptional features which are of national historic importance, even though having been altered to a large extent.
• Particular pub-type rooms in establishments like banks or hotels.
(http://www.heritagepubs.org.uk/home/WhatAreHistoricPubInteriors.asp)
Most of listed English pubs are of late-Victorian style, which is believed to be a crucial historical period for the classic pub culture to boom and thrive till the modern present. The Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival style during the mid to late 19th century. The architectural style is often seen as an identity representing certain spectacles of the British pub culture, which makes the pub features high in surveys on British icons. Intricate window frames, impressive glasses, mirror works, dark wooden furniture, old photographs, private cubicles, tiles and mosaic are all evident features of a classic Victorian appearance. This will be further addressed and discussed in Chapter 5.
2 There’s also Regional Inventories of Historic Pub Interiors, which represents next tier of pub preservation hierarchy,
Figure 4.1 Pub interior are unique exhibiting space in need to be preserved. The Old Contemptibles in Birmingham is a late-Victorian pub named after a group of British soldiers who served in France
in 1914. It’s one of the stars on the Nicolson’s ale trail3 in Birmingham (Photo taken in Birmingham, 2013)
With the view to raise more awareness of pub heritage preservation, CAMRA’s Pub Heritage Group also seeks several different accesses to increase pub publicity coverage. So far, six Real Heritage Pubs guides have been published – for London, East Anglia, North East England, Scotland, Wales and Yorkshire.
Amongst all, Britain’s Best Real Heritage Pubs is the printed guide introducing all the listed pubs in the National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors. It is the first time that these pubs has been collated into a single volume, with high-quality photography and years of dedication of CAMRA members, finding and listing the extensive search in historic pub interiors that are worth preserving.
Licensed to Sell: The History and Heritage of the Public House is also authored by the group, specifically focus on telling the historical development of the English pubs, and not just list the properties out.
3 Nicolson’s runs ale trials in London, Scotland and Birmingham. http://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/aletrail/
Figure 4.2 The printed guide to peak into 270 pub heritages listed in the National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors, with full-color
photography and helpful mapping to assist usage of the book (Retrieved from:
http://www.heritagepubs.org.uk/home/home.asp )
Figure 4.3 Licensed to Sell: The History and Heritage of the Public House is another volume authored by members of CAMRA’s Pub
Heritage Group, looking on the development of the English pubs (Retrieved from:
http://www.heritagepubs.org.uk/home/furtherrea ding.asp)
While pub architecture and its interior are getting more attention and protection by CAMRA’s preservation project, further identified and kept track by the National Inventory of Pub Heritage Interiors, we shouldn’t neglect that it’s because a large number of public houses are in significant decline, due to lack of understanding of how important an English pub is to the local communities.
Pub culture often embodies a relatively ‘local’ image constructed by the people involved and interacted with the space. This preservation project reveals that CAMRA brings a unique, distinctiveness compared to other cultural heritage preservations and on different levels. CAMRA isn’t just saving ‘the pub’, but also aims at preserving ‘culture’ itself, including history and selected memory, on a local, fundamental basis. The next section would discuss the relationship between CAMRA and local community; of how much pub business matters to community people and that it stands for a venerable part in bringing people together as a unique social network. Sub-campaigns are also highly advocated on local and regional levels to call for attention and awareness, fixing pub regulations and beer duty etc.
Local community & identity construction
The role of community in providing support for English pubs has never been more needed in today’s world. For most of residents in the community, the main challenge is to figure out how to keep the pub business running and remain sustainable in the future, as local residents are mostly pub customers themselves.
Local people value the pub business in that they are seeking more than just the “products” that are being sold, but some kind of companionship and sense of belonging. Through encouraging
“indigenous entrepreneurships” (Meethan, 2001), it could stop the expropriation of profits from big pubco and further lead to a form of empowerment at a local level. Nadel-Klein (1991) also indicated that the maintenance of local identity and social cohesion within small communities may speak for local struggle over certain things such as land, religion and ‘way of life’, and such sentiments also reflect that certain rights has to be based on territorially defined group memberships (Nadel-Klein, 1991).
Due to a severe economic time, many pubs and rural services have struggled to operate, and in some cases have faced closure. There have been several campaigns and initiatives launched to call for attention, making sure that local publics are aware of the importance of community ownership on pub operation, retaining local pub as heart of the community.
For instance, Pub is the Hub4 is a non-profit organization dedicated to offering advice and support to licensees, rural pubs and community services, initiated by HRH the Prince of Wales in 2001. The initiative aims at protecting community pub, as well as encouraging community to run local pub business as the priorities, and bringing about more pub diversification to the area, thus
4 Pub is the Hub: http://www.pubisthehub.org.uk/
generating a collective awareness on the importance of rural services (http://www.pubisthehub.org.uk/).
Both internal and external factors are important parts in sustaining community economy. But apart from “keeping-it-in-the-family”, local pub business is not going to succeed with a merely tight companionship between communities, but has to reach out to local, regional or even national governments to actually take on actions and make changes for the current circumstances.
A recent campaign titled “Pub Matters: So why can’t we have a say” was launched in 2014 which aims to call on the Government to close and fix national planning loopholes, as the weak planning laws in the UK has encouraged British pubs to be shut down and closed at the rate of 31 per week, as well as pubs being converted into convenience stores for instance (http://pubsmatter.org.uk/the-campaign). The campaign is calling on the amendments and change over the law so to give power back to the local communities by ensuring planning permission is always required before the conversion of the establishments (http://www.sheffieldcamra.org.uk/2014/08/pub-matters/).
Well-runned community pubs will help define local distinctiveness and special sense of place.
The search for distinctiveness of a place is quintessential in constructing tourists experience, since tourism is still seen as the rock of local economy and catalyst for cultural and social regeneration.
Community culture differs according to different local lifestyle and a unique cultural landscape constructed between people and place and this is part of the essential creative element necessary for creative economy to grow on a local basis. Pub culture is a tradition and identity that draws the difference from other cultures. The main thing is that the campaign has helped local communities to find back the spirit of ‘local’ and ‘craft’, which are the very fundamental spirit and ambition to preserve both community pub and local culture and further encourage community identity and
nostalgia to grow and develop. The next section attempts to explore the budding relationship between CAMRA and its linking platforms and sources that assist in promoting and raising awareness for community pubs and real ale consumption.
Campaign & the Brand: Disseminating the message
Pub culture is an iconic, rooted cultural image and celebration in England. From past to present, there’s an evident alteration and modernization with the linkage between pub culture and the locals.
Pub culture is a relatively wide topic for discussion and frankly speaking, CAMRA is just a movement that gradually provides new perspective to expound on pub culture and ale consumption while also protesting on the capitalist economy. Pub, ale, time, places, and other media actors are interlinked to brand a CAMRA image and a peculiar consumer culture.
The brand mediates the supply and demand of products through co-ordination and integration of the use of a certain meeting ‘interface’ (Lury, 2006). CAMRA started up as a single-issue consumer movement, but today, CAMRA could be seen as a brand because it acts as a means of communication and a (distributed) platform in which ideas and products can be communicated and negotiated through an interface between an ‘inner’ environment and the very ‘outer’, between the campaign itself and the outside surroundings and community it operates to (Lury, 2006, p. 49).
Brand isn’t just about symbols and logos, but an organization with thoughts, objectives, and reason.
The following deliberation attempts to comprise few dimensions to examine CAMRA as a brand and its performativity in brand production, of how festivals/events, pub trail construction, cultural mediums practiced to make the campaign more visible and raise local tourism profile.
Festivals & events
Festivals aren’t just events, but mediums for both producers and consumers co-exist to communicate and share the qualities of relationality and interexchangability. CAMRA’s ultimate goal with all festivals is to raise public awareness for real ale and encourage people to ask for it and drink it in their local pub. As a result, many licensees actively support the festival and they’ve had good impression with all these festive platforms to showcase their unique architectural establishments and diverse range of beers on offer. Well-publicized CAMRA festivals can certainly bring business into towns, generating employment and improving local development with such liveliness and conviviality. Among all the CAMRA festivals, the Great British Beer Festival5 is the UK’s biggest annual beer festival organized by CAMRA in London and is also styled as “the biggest pub in the world”, offering over 450 beers from British breweries, as well as guest beer from neighboring countries such as Belgium, Germany and also USA. The festival takes place at the venue Olympia in London annually.
Figure 4.4 The venue of the Great British Beer Festival – The Olympia (Retrieved from:
http://gbbf.org.uk/the-event/about-the-venue)
The Brewery Bars6 have also been a special feature during the Great British Beer Festival as an outlet for small-scale, family-runned breweries and also independent and traditional big brands to be in presence serving beers in the venue, creating publicity and getting beer drinkers to support
5 The Great British Beer Festival: http://gbbf.org.uk/
local drinks. Some of the renowned and prestigious breweries include Fuller’s, Harvey & Son, Wells & Young’s, and Wadworth & Co are all regular attendees at this annual event.
Figure 4.5 Fuller’s at the Brewery Bar at the Great British Beer Festival (Retrieved from:
http://gbbf.org.uk/brewery-bars/single/fullers)
Figure 4.6 Harvey & Son at the Brewery Bar at the Great British Beer Festival (Retrieved from:
http://gbbf.org.uk/brewery-bars/single/harvey-son)
Figure 4.7 Wells & Young’s at the Brewery Bar at the Great British Beer Festival (Retrieved from:
http://gbbf.org.uk/brewery-bars/single/wells-and-youngs)
Figure 4.8 Wadworth & Co. at the Brewery Bar at the Great British Beer Festival (Retrieved from:
http://gbbf.org.uk/brewery-bars/single/wadworth)
Festival and events are essential elements in valorizing a city atmosphere to enhance tourism experience (Richard, 2013), and in CAMRA’s case, the Great British Beer Festival not only helps
revitalize an existing ‘product’, but also generate employment and numbers of people volunteering at the event that further construct sense of collectivity and belonging within communities and bring about more potential converts besides the already CAMRA members, as Paula Waters (2011) recalled her volunteering and staff experience at the Great British Beer Festival,
The one thing that has astounded all these Event Manager is the fact that the entire festival is planned, organized and run by volunteers…The Great British Beer Festival is a huge, a flagship event for the Campaign and yet it is unpaid people, giving up their time and efforts, which is the key to its success.
(Waters, 2011, p. 45)
What is remarkable about getting volunteers involved in the events is that they are genuinely passionate about sharing their love for real ales. CAMRA runs the Great British Beer Festival for the public with the view to showcase wide range of real ales in brewing industry. What CAMRA attempts to do with most of festivals is to keep them “authentic” and by that, it means to organize
What is remarkable about getting volunteers involved in the events is that they are genuinely passionate about sharing their love for real ales. CAMRA runs the Great British Beer Festival for the public with the view to showcase wide range of real ales in brewing industry. What CAMRA attempts to do with most of festivals is to keep them “authentic” and by that, it means to organize