25 YEARS AGO
New microbrewery Banks and Taylor was set up at Shefford in Bedfordshire by Martin Ayres and Mike Desquesnes with their wives Angela and Jan after Martin was made redundant by Whitbread.
 In a scarcely credible move, national brewers Watney Mann and Truman, the chief scourge for CAMRA through the 1970’s, linked up with Ruddles, then an independent Rutland brewer, to stock the famous real ale Ruddles County in Watney houses. Watneys boasted the biggest range for its pubs of any UK brewer – five real ales, six keg bitters and milds, and four keg lagers. Guest beers in tied houses had previously been unthinkable, and the term had not yet been invented, but Whitbread had also been trying out ‘non-house’ beers and, locally, Paine’s brewery of St Neots had been trying beers such as Marstons and Fullers in selected pubs.
CAMRA declared Watneys’ infamous ‘Red Revolution’ over as the red barrel logo was expunged from their 1500 pubs in the London area, re-badged as Watney, Combe and Reid with an old stag trademark in a throwback to the 19th century.
Another surprise move by the Watney group was the introduction of a new real mild ale, Bullards Mild, in 85 of its Norwich Brewery pubs. CAMRA’s delighted Norwich branch secretary Paul Moorhouse, pictured at the launch alongside Rodney Mann, managing director of Norwich Brewery, said: ’It has doubled the number of real mild outlets in our area’.
Meanwhile CAMRA’s Norwich branch banned Norwich Brewery’s beers from its October beer festival for its misleading promotion of keg Webster’s Yorkshire bitter alongside the real cask version. By December, Norwich Brewery had relented and were to re-brand the keg version to emphasise the difference. ‘It is the traditional beer that has taken off’ explained Marketing Director Peter Hopkinson.
St Neots CAMRA held a meeting at the Waterloo in Huntingdon, now known as the Samuel Pepys. There was a winter social at Alconbury (the White Hart and the Crown), a pub crawl of St Neots started at the Wrestlers, and the branch Christmas party was at Kisby’s Hut (listed in CAMRA’s newspaper Whats Brewing as an Everard’s pub).
Ireland’s first new brewery since the 19th century was set up in Dublin as Dempseys became Dublin’s second biggest brewer, and the city’s only real ale brewer.
Cambridge CAMRA’s leading member Tony Millns was elected chairman of CAMRA at a meeting of its national executive.
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10 YEARS AGO
Cambridgeshire CAMRA celebrated a new cask mild as City of Cambridge brewery launched Jet Black, described by CAMRA as ‘a very porterish mild’.
 Adnams of Southwold launched Oyster Stout, the delicious roasty ale that became an eagerly anticipated annual seasonal ale. It was originally brewed under another name as a special brew for CAMRA’s Norwich Beer Festival in 1996, when it was voted Beer of the Festival. But CAMRA urged Adnams to reconsider its decision to relegate its cask mild to a seasonal beer brewed once a year. Sales of Adnams Mild had fallen below 7 barrels a week.
Norfolk Nips, the organ of Norfolk CAMRA, reported on ‘big brewery carnage’ as the UK’s national brewers began the dismantling of their real ale brewing operations that in 2007 is almost complete. In 1997 Whitbread cut nine regional cask brands, including Chesters, Wethereds and Fremlins. Carlsberg-Tetley disposed of its famous Ind Coope brewery in Burton on Trent to Bass and closed its Alloa plant, and Bass announced the closure of its Cardiff and Sheffield breweries.
CAMRA’s St Neots branch ran a taste test at its St Ives beer festival in which 86% of non-CAMRA members preferred real ale served without the use of a sparkler being used increasingly in pubs to create more foam on the beer. Drinkers said that the beer without a sparkler was more active on the palate, with more bitterness and a fuller flavour. The branch held open committee meetings at the Prince of Wales, Hilton and the Olde Sun in St Neots,  and a late Christmas party in January 1998 at the Green Man at Leighton Bromswold.
CAMRA called upon Japanese bank Nomura to maintain customer choice after it bought the Inntrepreneur and Spring Inns pub estates from Grand Metropolitan and Australian brewers Fosters to add to its former Phoenix Inns chain to form the biggest UK group of around 5500 pubs, to be used to underwrite its global money lendings. Inntrepreneur lessees had enjoyed the right to stock a guest beer, and Phoenix Inns had been free of tie. CAMRA were urging the retention of these rights, as well as a wider choice of real ales as a supply agreement with Scottish Courage was due to end in March 1998.
The real ale revival reached the Isle of Unst as a new cask ale brewery was set up at Baltasound with funding from the Shetlands Islands Council and Shetland Enterprise. In 2007 the Valhalla brewery at Baltasound remains the UK’s most northerly brewery.
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