Today I was delighted to attend the CAMRA Leicester Beer Festival 2025, held at the Abbey Pumping Station Museum, at the invitation of Cllr Roy Denney - a leading light in Leicestershire CAMRA
While the event was enormous fun, I wanted to touch on just a couple of points.
First, I want to give my sincere thanks to the Campaign for Real Ale.
And not just for this magnificent Beer Festival.
Unlike most of you, I’m old enough to remember when the big brewery companies launched massive advertising campaigns for insipid dishwater brands like Watney’s Red Barrel or Worthington’s Double Diamond to try to convince us that they were the finest examples of the brewer’s art available.
In fact they were export pale ales filtered and pasteurised to within an inch of their lives to survive export overseas. So they kept well and were cheap to produce. You can imagine how the accountants loved them. Big profits and big turnover, but at the cost of taste, variety and quality.
And then along came CAMRA. Founded by four blokes in a pub in Nuneaton in 1972, it had over 5,000 members within a year. By the time I was old enough to start visiting pubs, CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide already had the status of a Bible for an evening out.
It introduced me to Director’s, Tanglefoot, Tiger, Double Dragon and a host of other delicious brews. Just as important it took me to a vast number of remarkable pubs both locally in south London and further afield. I remember one camping holiday in Wales built entirely around pubs serving beers that we London lads had never even heard of, never mind tried.
Ah - Happy Days!
So here’s to CAMRA and its members. Cheers!
But if CAMRA saved British beer from the threat posed by brewery accountants desire for profits, we still face the threat of successive governments and their desire to tax beer drinkers into poverty and breweries and pubs into bankruptcy.
For years the tax on beer has been going remorselessly upwards. Pubs have been hit by rises to National Insurance, business rates and other taxes. The hospitality trade has not yet recovered from government lockdowns, but now government wants to milk it of every penny it can.
I wouldn’t mind so much if the government was giving that money to the police. I am Police and Crime Commissioner, after all.
But instead the pay it to Mauritius for the Chagos Islands, to pay for hotel rooms for illegal immigrants and vast solar and wind power farms to meet Net Zero at any cost.
That is why I’m backing the Campaign for Pubs and its “Fair Deal for Your Local” campaign, which calls for:
- Reforms to the planning system.
- Lower energy bills.
- Fair tax for pubs.
- A community right to buy pubs earmarked for closure
- Tax breaks and other support for small brewers.
The second thing I wanted to touch on comes from my role as your Police and Crime Commissioner. Good quality beer is a joy to us all. But if it is not treated with respect it can cause problems. Far too much police time is taken up with dealing with late night fights, drunk drivers and anti social behaviour following an over indulgence.
So here is a simple plea from me to you. Enjoy your beer. But don’t overdo it. Get home safe.
Thanks to sponsors Vertu Toyota of Leicester.
The Beer Festival is open 26 June – 28 June at the Abbey Pumping Station. Note: This is a CARD ONLY festival. No cash can be accepted. More details on the Beer Festival website.