The word of the day’s cask gets out, by Twitter, Facebook, emails and texts. “An IPA from Central City Brewery will be tapped at the Whip Gallery.” Word travels around the CAMRA membership – there is a fair bit of excitement over this cask. Sure enough, when I arrive there’s a good crowd. My first CAMRA event was one such cask night. Now I attend one or two cask nights per week.
Cask ales hold a certain fascination for beer aficionados. Cask-conditioned beers are hand-crafted, unfiltered, unpasteurized beers that are carbonated naturally. It’s an old-school method, yet many of these ales are modern and innovative. Cask beer nights are popping up all around Vancouver: the Whip Gallery, St. Augustine’s, Dix and Yaletown Brewpub all have weekly cask nights, while the Alibi Room and the Irish Heather are now offering cask beers all week. Amberjack’s Taphouse has brought cask nights to the valley. And with establishments such as the Alibi Room and St. Augustine’s devoting the entirety of their tap lines to microbrews it has shown that venues committed to craft beer can thrive in Vancouver (26 taps at the Alibi Room, 40 taps at St. Augustine’s). The local craft beer movement is gaining momentum.
CAMRA, or the Campaign For Real Ale, is an international movement rooted in the UK, with chapters around Canada, including the very active group based in Vancouver. While technically defined as an advocacy group, CAMRA is also a social group of craft beer fans who gather to celebrate their favourite brews. In addition to weekly cask nights, CAMRA organizes a number of larger events: summer and winter cask festivals (where over 20 casks prepared by many of BC’s best breweries are available to be sampled), food and beer pairing dinners in some of Vancouver’s finest restaurants and field trips to breweries and festivals around the Northwest. Our most recent trip was down to the Washington Cask Beer Festival in Seattle.
CAMRA’s message of drinking hand-crafted, local and fresh fits right into the eat fresh-and-local food movement. What makes sense for food makes sense for beer. We work to promote local and fresh beer, to encourage pubs and restaurants to consider carrying craft beers, and to educate about the world of beers. But we also gather to have fun over fine brews, at the weekly cask nights, and at establishments that have committed to serving craft beer.
With weekly cask events, annual festivals, trips and dinners, we keep ourselves busy. And with the Vancouver Craft Beer Week coming up in May, there will be no shortage of fine brews to sample this Spring. For more information about CAMRA and upcoming beer events, please check out: http://camravancouver.ca. Cheers!