| Vince Capano is a two time winner of the prestigious Quill and Tankard writing award for humor from the North American Guild of Beer Writers. Vince's column is now a regular feature of beernexus.com Check back often for the next installment of Vince's Adventures in Beerland |
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| There's no "e" in CAMRA by Vince Capano Do you remember Ralph Nader? No not the perennial candidate for the presidency of the Green, Chartreuse, and Teal political parties, but the blazing consumer crusader of legend. It was back in the sixties when Nader took on General Motors and their accident waiting to happen of a car, the Covair. GM tried to discredit Nader, hiring private detectives to tap his phones and investigate his past. They even went so far as to hire prostitutes to trap him in compromising situations. Nader remained steadfast regardless of temptation. He was so straight he even refused their offer of a free life time supply of beer. Well, I’ve found an organization that Mr. Nader would be proud of, except for the fact that not a one of it’s members would ever consider turning down a free life time supply (or glass for that matter) of beer. The organization is CAMRA, or Campaign for Real Ale. Yes, that really is the name of this indigenous British organization. You can Google it if you don’t believe me but be forewarned the first one hundred and seventy two listings will be from some outfit trying to sell you a camera. CAMRA, like Mr. Nader, fights for the protection of consumers. In the case of CAMRA the consumer is one long ignored both here in the USA and across the pond – beer drinkers. I first became aware of this organization when I saw their club newspaper, “What’s On Tap”. It wasn’t a typical ad dominated American “brewspaper” but an informative, political, and engaging 30 page production. The only down side was that while I could understand each individual word that was written not a single sentence made any sense. It may be called the Queen’s English but it was mostly Greek to me. “What’s On Tap” could easily have been the British version of Abbott & Costello's “Who’s on First”. Still, it wasn’t that hard to get the general thrust of their mission – promote an appreciation of traditional beers, fight the three card Monte types pouring it, and show that a local pub is more than just a place to get a pint. To CAMRA a traditional beer doesn’t mean an old can of Budweiser or a “retro” lager that has more adjuncts than the local college. It means cask ale. According to CAMRA, cask ale is beer brewed from traditional ingredients (malted barley, hops, water and yeast), matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide. As such, real ale is not filtered or pasteurized and has its own natural carbonation. Think a 7 grain organic oven baked loaf instead of 24 slices of Wonder Bread. Now those of you paying close attention have already noted that CAMRA seems to be missing the letter “C” for cask. No problem in explaining that. In the early 1970s CAMRA coined the term “real ale” to be synonymous with cask ale, cask- conditioned beer, and naturally conditioned beer. Hey, it’s their group so they can make up whatever they like. I think they just meant to say real ale is the opposite of fake ale. After all, it’s hard for a bartender to pour someone a glass of tinted watery ersatz beer like a Coors or Miller Lite when they forcefully order “real ale”. Since every drop of real ale is a treat, it’s understandable that CAMRA would take on those underhanded purveyors of the “short” pour. CAMRA reports that almost 30% of pints served in British pubs are under-filled by up to 10%. While a few ounces to you might not seem that big a deal it is to the pub owners. It’s estimated that they saved (or cheated the consumer out of) over $950 million last year alone. I think Bernie Madoff got his start bartending at one of these places. Here in the US the practice of the short pour seems even more widespread. The ubiquitous “shaker” pint actually holds only 14 ounces of liquid even when filled to the top. Throw in the head and you’re probably getting only 12-13 ounces of liquid. With these shaker pints the only thing being shaken down is you. Even worse than the short pour are the “cheater pints” – glasses with extra-thick bottoms. And naïve you thought the only one with extra thick glasses was Mr. Magoo. Combine the short poor with these cheater pints or a sham pilsner glass and you get a gold mine for the unscrupulous proprietor. Calling 911 won’t help either. Contacting the Department of Weights and Measures will be fruitless. Even your local consumer protection agency can’t help since not one of our 50 states has a law on the books that expressly states how many ounces constitute a serving of a “pint”. In fact, it’s totally legal to call anything a “pint”. I can see the bar special now – Pint specials on Jack Daniels today – 2 shots per person limit. Currently CAMRA’s main focus is on saving the pubs of the UK. I guess they figure enough people are already saving the whales, dodo bird, and Bali Snapping Turtle, now it’s time to take care of something a bit closer to home. CAMRA reports that 39 pubs a week are closing, a lamentable fact if there ever was one but not Armageddon to me. It’s only apocalypse-now time when it’s my local pub that’s closing, not yours. Sadly, I did experience that moment years ago when my favorite pub, The Hornets Nest, suddenly closed. I was devastated. In fact I didn’t have a beer for almost five minutes which is about the time it took me to drive to Bogey’s Bar down the road. I do admit that it was only a 2 minute drive; the other 3 minutes were due to a slow bartender. Real ale, like people, reacts to how it’s treated. When the barrels arrive at the pub they are mounted sideways into a holder (stillion) or behind the bar counter to settle (clear). A “celarman” (the fancy name for a guy with a stained Grateful Dead t-shirt) vents the barrel and a secondary fermentation begins. The real ale is then served directly from the barrel using gravity or by a hand-pump (beer engine). If you see something that looks like a slot machine handle propped up on bar you’re looking at the beer engine; expect you’re payoff in real ale not coins. CAMRA warns to be on the lookout for fake hand-pumps. While I can’t believe producing these phony devices is as lucrative as counterfeiting $20 bills or selling old shoes worn by Simon Crowell on E-Bay, nonetheless there is a market for this stuff. The fake hand-pump dispenses pressurized beer with the use of extraneous gas. These sly contraptions craftily mimic the pulling action of a real beer engine, giving the impression that the liquid being dispensed is cask-conditioned ale. They even have a hydraulic damper which makes the pulling action slow and steady, just like the correct pouring speed of an authentic beer engine. The customer will assume he’s getting real ale but instead is receiving a pint of standard gas-infused keg beer. In such cases you clearly have grounds for a citizens’ arrest or, at the very least, justifiable homicide. One way to insure your real ale is real is to have it served from a firkin placed atop the bar. A spigot is turned and gravity, not a hand pump, takes care of the rest. Oh yes, in this case a firkin is not really a firkin. It’s just a small cask, not the dictionary definition of 9 imperial gallons. As I said, the Queen’s English can get confusing. From short pours to fake beer engines, with countless caveat emptor stuff in between, going to the pub is no longer an easy task. It’s nice to know our friends in the UK can count on CAMRA to help them do battle with the beer chiselers out there. Sadly we beer folk in the USA do not have such an advocacy group. But on the other hand, we do have Ralph Nader. May I suggest to you, Mr. Nader, who by the way is an avid read of Beernexus (maybe), that you add the cause of real ale to your crusades. I think it’s the firkin right thing to do. |
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| There's no "e" in CAMRA by Vince Capano |