The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is an independent voluntary consumer organisation headquartered in St Albans, which promotes real ale, cider and perry and traditional British pubs and clubs.
A pub is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the late 17th century, to differentiate private houses from those open to the public as alehouses, taverns and inns. Today, there is no strict definition, but the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) states a pub has four characteristics:
- is open to the public without membership or residency
- serves draught beer or cider without requiring food be consumed
- has at least one indoor area not laid out for meals
- allows drinks to be bought at a bar
Real ale is the name coined by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) for beer that is "brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide".
Carlsberg Marston's Brewing Company (CMBC) is the British subsidiary of Carlsberg Group, operating multiple breweries. It was founded by a merger of Carlsberg's existing UK operations and Marston's plc brewing operations, the latter of which had a 40% share in the business from the entity's founding in November 2020 until July 2024.
The Titanic Brewery is an independent producer of bottle conditioned and cask ales in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England.
Beer has been brewed in England for thousands of years. As a beer brewing country, it is known for top fermented cask beer which finishes maturing in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery and is served with only natural carbonation.
Beer in Wales can be traced to the 6th century. Since the 2000s, there has been a growing microbrewery industry in Wales.
The Champion of the Thames is a pub in King Street, Cambridge, England. The pub's name derives from an oarsman who won a sculling race on the Thames before moving to Cambridge in 1860. He required that all mail to him be addressed to "The Champion of the River Thames, King Street, Cambridge". The rowing connection continues, the Champion of the Thames rowing club being sponsored by the pub.
Claregate is a suburb of Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England. It is north west of Wolverhampton city centre, within the Tettenhall Regis ward.
The Great British Beer Festival is an annual beer festival organised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). It presents a selection of cask ales, and the Champion Beer of Britain awards, and is held in August of each year. GBBF's sister festival, the Great British Beer Festival Winter, is held in February each year.
Jennings Brewery was established as a family concern in 1828 in the village of Lorton, between Buttermere and Cockermouth in the Lake District, England. The brewery was started by John Jennings Snr, son of William Jennings. Jennings brewed exclusively in Lorton until 1874 when its present home, the Castle Brewery in Cockermouth, was purchased. The Lorton brewery closed some five years later.
Beer in the United Kingdom has a long history, and has quite distinct traditions. Historically the main styles were top-fermented Bitters, Porters, Stouts and Milds, but after World War II lagers took over half the market by volume. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) was founded in 1971 and has encouraged the preservation and revival of traditional styles of ale. In particular CAMRA has promoted cask conditioned beer, which completes its maturation in casks in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery. As of 2014 the UK drank 634 million imperial pints of cask ale, representing 60% of ale in pubs and restaurants and 17% of all beer in pubs. In total 42.42 million hectolitres of beer were produced in 2013 of which 48% was sold in the off-trade.
The National Pub of the Year is an annual competition held by CAMRA, the winner of which is announced in the February of the year following that in which the competition is run, that finds the best pub in the UK. Established in 1988, the competition helps to highlight quality pubs around the UK that are worth seeking out and visiting. Each year, each local CAMRA branch nominates one pub in their area to be entered. These 200 pubs then go through to the regional competition, which then whittles down to 4 pubs to go to the national final.
The Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood (SPBW), founded in 1963, is the oldest consumer-based group interested in stimulating the brewing of, increasing the awareness of, and encouraging the drinking of traditional cask ale. The Society also supports and encourages the use of wooden casks for beer dispense.
The term micropub was originally devised by the Campaign for Real Ale, in the 1976 edition of its Good Beer Guide, simply as a description for an unusually small but otherwise traditional pub. Examples of pubs described as such in this era included Manchester's Circus Tavern and The Nutshell in Bury St Edmunds. In more recent years, the term came to be redefined much more tightly, as a very small, modern, one-room pub, serving no food other than snacks, and "based upon good ale and lively banter". The original of these newly-defined micropubs is often cited as the Butchers Arms in Herne, Kent.
The Elgin is a Grade II listed public house at 96 Ladbroke Grove, London.
William Milroy Etheridge is an English politician who was previously a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands region. He was elected in 2014 as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate, but left the party in October 2018 and joined the Libertarian Party. He joined the Brexit Party in 2019 but rejoined UKIP in September 2020. He unsuccessfully stood for UKIP leader in 2016, and 2024.
A snob screen is a device found in some British public houses of the Victorian era. Usually installed in sets, they comprise an etched glass pane in a movable wooden frame and were intended to allow middle class drinkers to see working class drinkers in an adjacent bar, but not to be seen by them, and to be undisturbed by the bar staff.
