About Us
The Dudley & South Staffordshire Campaign for Real Ale is a local branch affiliated to the national Campaign for Real Ale. Our aim is to promote Real Ales and to help you to discover the best places to try them.
Join CAMRA
CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale is an independent, voluntary organisation campaigning for real ale, community pubs and consumer rights. CAMRA supports well-run pubs as the centres of community life - whether in rural or urban areas - and believe their continued existence play a critical social role in UK culture. CAMRA also supports the pub as the one place in which to consume real ale (also known as cask-conditioned beer or cask ale) and to try one of over 5,500 different styles now produced across the UK.
Some of the benefits of membership:
- £30 of vouchers per year for a number of public houses
- Reduced entry price to lots of beer festivals
- Exclusive monthly online members newspaper - 'What's Brewing'
- Book Discounts
- And more...
Please visit the CAMRA website for guidance on joining.
Branch Meetings & Socials
The branch holds regular monthly meetings at various pubs in the branch area. All members are welcome to attend to find out what is going on and have their say. Branch social events come in various forms including: pub crawls, meeting fellow members at beer festivals and events, occasional minbus trips to outlying branch pubs that are difficult to get to and an organised coach trip to the Great British Beer Festival in London. Details on the Dudley & South Staffs calendar can be found in our branch diary.
Beer Quality Scoring
This is an easy one and doesn't require much effort. When you have a pint give the quality of the beer a score out of 5 and enter ther scores on Whatpub.com. It is an easy to use system that has been designed to assist CAMRA branches in selecting pubs for the Good Beer Guide and monitoring beer quality by encouraging CAMRA members to report on beer quality wherever they go.
Beer Festival Volunteering
Members from the branch help staff the beer tent at Kinver Country Fair and organise and staff the beer tent at the Black Country Boating Festival, Windmill End, Netherton. There's also our big Dudley Winter Ales Fayre meeting held at the end of November.
Campaign
CAMRA's mission is to support and promote good pubs and Real Ale. This valuable work is undertaken locally by branches and individual members. These efforts are backed up by national CAMRA campaigns to secure backing for pubs and Real Ale from Government. Current campaigns include: Fighting pub closures through the planning system, List Your Local and Beer Tax. Find out more at the CAMRA campaigns page.
Young members
I'm aged 18-30. Why should I join CAMRA?
CAMRA has over 100,000 members and of those around 3% are under 26 and 9% are under 30. The under 30's are often active members and you will find many Young CAMRA events taking place throughout the year. These range from dedicated pub crawls at the Great British Beer Festival to trips to breweries and social nights at local pubs. The range of events in the West Midlands organised by Young CAMRA are varied and interesting. These include Real Football, Posada, Welly Club, Curry and Ale night, Culturale and many, many pub crawls, working socials at beer festivals and visits to breweries. The chance to meet up with like minded under 30's and make real friends is a great benefit of joining CAMRA that should not be overlooked in the age of 'Internet friends'. Though of course, we are present online and it is a great way to organise events!
I am a Young Member - what does CAMRA want from me other than my money and what does it do with my money?
CAMRA want you to be an active member no matter what age you are. Young CAMRA are the future of the organisation and without them the Campaign will not succeed. We want you to join in on our events, come along to our meetings and volunteer at our beer festivals! We don't just want to take 100,000 people's money in exchange for a newspaper - that is not a Campaign! We have various topics and issues that we tackle on both a national and local level. Your money will go towards campaigning. CAMRA are a non profit organisation whose members fund the activities that help prevent brewery takeovers, pub closures and campaign against tax increases on Real Ale, Cider and Perry.
The CAMRA website has the full campaign details and you will see many past examples of how membership fees have helped.
How can I include CAMRA in my busy life?
You can be as active as you want to be so why not give it a go! It is even as simple as choosing to drink Real Ale! The more you put into CAMRA, the more you will benefit! Choose events and activities that fit around your free time. Campaigning can take as little as 5 minutes - you can visit the website and look for updates and news. You can add CAMRA to your Facebook and find local socials and campaigning events. Score the quality of your beer, find out more... Got 10 minutes free? Drop an email to your local MP! A couple of hours? Go to a Branch Meeting. Whole day free? Go on a social or campaigning event. Visit a beer festival and volunteer behind the bar. If local events and campaigning constantly clashes with your other priorities, let your branch contact know. They will do their best to accommodate you and help you to attend. Don't take on more than you have time for. Enjoy the social side and have fun with like minded people and most of all keep drinking Real Ale!