Glossary
CAMRA
The Campaign for Real Ale: a British consumer organisation founded in 1971 to defend cask-conditioned beer and traditional pubs.
Also called campaign for real ale.
Campaigning definition. Defined by an organisation as part of a position it advocates. Precise and useful, but not a neutral technical standard. Defined by CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale).
CAMRA was formed in response to the rapid replacement of cask beer with keg products by a consolidated national brewing industry, and it is one of the most effective consumer campaigns of the period — cask beer survived in Britain in a way it did not elsewhere, and that is substantially attributable to it.
It is a campaigning organisation with positions, not a neutral standards body. Its definition of real ale is precise and useful; it is also a definition constructed to advance a case, and BeerHQ labels it as such wherever it is used.
Related
- Real ale — The definition it created.
- British cask ale — The tradition it defends.
More vocabulary
Brewery tap · Brewpub · Contract brewing · Craft beer · Cru · Microbrewery · Real ale · Session beer · Small beer
See every term on the glossary index.
Last reviewed 2026-08-16.
Evidence
What BeerHQ knows about this, and how. Every statement carries the state of the evidence behind it rather than being presented flatly as fact.
CAMRA was founded in 1971 in response to the rapid replacement of cask-conditioned beer with keg products by a consolidated national brewing industry.
Backed by a source
Sources: Campaign for Real Ale; The Oxford Companion to Beer — print