Campaign for Real Ale Campaign for Real Ale The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is an independent voluntary consumer organisation headquartered in St Albans, England, which promotes real ale, real cider and the traditional British pub. With over 191,000 members, it is now the largest single-issue consumer group in the UK, and is a founding member of the European Beer Consumers Union (EBCU). The organisation was founded in 1971 in Kruger's bar in Dunquin, Kerry, Ireland by Michael Hardman, Graham Lees, Jim Makin, and Bill Mellor, who were opposed to the growing mass production of beer and the homogenisation of the British brewing industry.
Beer in England brewers producing their own brands or brewing under licence. Canned beer was also introduced about this time. A consumer organisation, the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) was founded, in 1971, to protect unpressurised beer. The group devised the term "real ale" to differentiate between beer served from the cask and beer served under pressure and to differentiate both from lager. "Ale" now meant a top-fermented beer, not an unhopped beer. Camra was to become an influential force, with a membership of over 170,000. At the time, brewing was dominated by the "big six" breweries: Whitbread, Scottish and Newcastle, Bass Charrington,