Exeter Real Ale Festival

Del Cooper reports from the Exeter Real Ale Festival and talks its organiser Alan Major. Ale includes bitter, mild, stout and pale, golden or old ale and is the traditional method for brewing British beer. In the late sixties and early seventies craft beer was losing out to large breweries and the Campaign for the Revitalisation of Ale was set up in 1971 by Michael Hardman, Graham Lees, Jim Makin and Bill Mellor. In 1973 it became the Campaign for Real Ale or CAMRA.

Brew pubs and cask ale, bottled organic craft beers and ciders or perry are very much a part of the cultural landscape and perhaps thanks to those early pioneers who refused to be invaded by fizzy beer! Many speciality beer pubs with tap rooms as opposed to cellars serve cask ale directly from the cask in which it is served using a handpump and gravity. The yeast is retained and the ale continues maturing and stays fresh. Finings can be introduced to cask ale to settle the yeast but some ales are served cloudy. The natural fermentation process produces less gas and herein lies the battle with fizzy beer where carbon dioxide gas is an addition. CAMRA has been publishing The Good Pub Guide since 1972.