The final six beers to feature in the Champion Beer of Britain competition to be held at the Great British Beer Festival at the NEC Birmingham in August have been announced as part of this week’s Cambridge Beer Festival (the longest running CAMRA festival, since 1974)
They join six beers announced at the Great British Winter Beer Festival earlier this year to make a field of twelve.
Two in particular I noted because they come from craft now indy brewers, Elusive and Track, that are part of the new wave of UK breweries which started from 2005. Both can be found in cask form but as often in keg or can
It represents something of a coming of age for an insurgent beer movement that certainly in its earlier period did not fit that well with CAMRA. The times they are changin’
Its one of those moments when the tectonic plates move.
In another register I recall when T.Rex’s Ride a White Swan hit No.1 in the BBC Chart in early 1971. A catchy pop number but it marked the entry into the mainstream of the hippie & beard music of the late 1960s, underground music.
Likewise in the Communards Don’t Leave Me This Way which hit No.1 in 1986 marked for many of us the acceptance of gay and left-wing culture into the mainstream.
These battles continue in each generation but are worth marking
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