CAMRA Welcomes you to the festival
CAMRA (CAMpaign for Real Ale) is pleased to be working with Macclesfield Round Table again this year for an extravaganza of real ale, cider & perry plus music in a most convivial setting, raising lots of money for this years charity.
Trevor Gammage, a long standing CAMRA member retired from the Macclesfield Beer Festival in 2015 after 21 years of success. This year myself, Chris Stairmand owner of The Wharf pub along with the help of my fellow CAMRA members, will be adding some new and unique ales at this years festival.
CAMRA
We are an independent, voluntary organisation campaigning for real ale, community pubs and consumer rights. It was formed in March 1971 by four men from the north-west who were disillusioned by the domination of the UK beer market by a handful of companies pushing products of low flavour and overall quality onto the consumer.
We’ve come a long way in the 40 years since Hardman, Lees, Makin & Mellor formed CAMRA. The battle to save cask ale has been incredibly successful with well over 1,000 breweries now in the UK. Real ale is more popular than ever and is enjoyed by all ages esp. with the opening of bars like The Wharf, Red Willow, Snow Goose and the Treacle Tap in Macclesfield.
The only blots on the landscape are that still too many of our treasured pubs are closing not helped by the pressure on licensees & consumers with rising costs. We have one of the highest tax rates on beer in the whole of Europe. CAMRA is focussing on tackling this and this year saw the first success: the abolition of the beer escalator which was increasing the tax on beer by 2% above inflation every year – automatically. This abomination saw the tax you paid on beer go up by 40% since 2008.
Membership
Our membership slogan is “A Campaign Of Two Halves” which recognises that whilst we’re very much about those aims above, we are also very much about enjoying real ale and pubs. Your local CAMRA branch has a full social calendar throughout the year including brewery trips, visiting beer festivals, local pub crawls and visits further afield.
Please visit the CAMRA membership stand where you will find a collection of interesting pub & beer related merchandise as well as members ready to chat about anything beer related.
If the above aims strike a chord maybe you should consider joining CAMRA. Membership rates are reasonable and you get £20 of vouchers to use at JD Wetherspoons, plus other benefits. Please ask at the membership stand or see the branch website for more details.
So there is nothing more for me to say other than “enjoy the festival” and “Cheers!”
Chris Stairmand
Macclesfield & East Cheshire CAMRA chairman
www.eastcheshirecamra.org.uk
