Welcome to Cheltenham CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale. We are a voluntary organisation campaigning for real ale, community pubs and consumer rights.The Cheltenham Branch has around 850 members in the GL50, GL51, GL52 and GL53 postcode areas.
Next 5 Diary Events |
| 20th November, 2019 - Ale Amble - November |
| 23rd November, 2019 - South West Regional Meeting - Bristol |
| 29th November, 2019 - Ale Extra - Dudley Winter Ale Festival |
| 3rd December, 2019 - Branch Business Meeting - December |
| 11th December, 2019 - Christmas Charity Sing-a-long |
| Full Branch Diary |
Cheltenham Real Ale Festival 2019 ..
… is now over. Many thanks to all our volunteers who helped with setup, take down and during Cheltenham Real Ale festival 2019. Hope to see you all again in 2020.
CRAF 2019 Day 2
Cheltenham Real Ale Festival 2019 day 2 is now open. We are at Cheltenham Ladies’College, Bayshill Road till 11pm tonight. Still plenty of beers, ciders and perries remaining. Vegan and non vegan food available and entertainment on stage from 1.30pm.
CRAF 2019. We open at 4:00pm!
Cheltenham Real Ale Festival (CRAF) 2019 opens today at 4:00pm.
Join us at the Ladies’ College and enjoy 80 ales, including a number of vegan ales, and 27 ciders and perries. There’s hot and cold food and entertainment available.
CRAF 2019 Beer & Cider Lists – updated 29th October
Vegan Friendly Beer for Cheltenham Real Ale Festival
This year’s Cheltenham CAMRA festival will have a vegan flavour. Breaking with the common practice of choosing real ales from a specific UK region or county, Cheltenham CAMRA will instead showcase the growing vegan beer sector.
Veganism, and an interest in vegan food and drink, is taking off particularly in places like Cheltenham, said festival committee member Grant Cook. So this year we have decided to make things easier by having a specific bay dedicated to vegan beers. This will give more focus on vegan beers and save people having to hunt round the hall to track down compatible ales from among the eighty or so available.
Vegan hot food will be provided by Hogless Roast.
Why is vegan beer different?
The majority of real ale in the UK is fined, producing the bright and clear beer we see in every pub. However, traditionally this has been achieved by adding Isinglass to beer casks. Isinglass is made from the swim bladders of fish and, although it sinks to the bottom of the cask and is not consumed, its use in producing real ale breaches vegan ethical principles.
Vegan compatible real ale can be produced in two ways. The first is to use a vegetable fining agent, either Irish Moss (an algae), seaweed or pea protein.
The alternative is simply not to fine the beer at all. This usually produces a haze in the final product, but the popularity among craft brewers for unfined beers has made this more mainstream in recent years.
All vegan friendly beers will be clearly marked in the programme, and we will have vegan street food vendor Hogless Roast to complement the beers, said Grant. We will also have twenty plus real ciders and perries, which are all naturally vegan-friendly.
If there are any vegans who would like to volunteer to man the vegan beer section, or to help promote and explain vegan beers and food, then please contact crafstaff@gmail.com with your contact details, and we’ll get back to you.
Once again the venue is Cheltenham Ladies’ College, with the wonderful Princess Hall as the centrepiece. Festival dates are Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd of November. Friday will see the festival open from 4pm to 11pm, Saturday will be 11am to 11pm, and there will be live entertainment on both days.
With 80 casks of real ales, 20 unique ciders and perries, wine, live entertainment, and hot and cold food, we expect this to be a popular festival in our great festival town.
More detail about CRAF19 will appear on the Cheltenham Branch Website – www.cheltenhamcamra.org.uk/craf
It’s that time of year again
Following the launch of the 2020 Good Beer Guide the process has now begun to select the entries for the 2021 Good Beer Guide and we need your help.
With around one hundred venues in Cheltenham eligible for just eight places, it is important that a robust and transparent selection process is put in place to ensure that only the best make it into the Good Beer Guide. The venues which are recommended for inclusion in the guide should be ones that we are proud to recommend, and are included primarily due to the high quality of the real ale served. It is vital that all Cheltenham CAMRA members are given the opportunity to help in the selection process.
For Phase One, which last’s until the end of November, you can get involved in two ways:
1. By recommending a venue that you believe is a strong candidate for inclusion in the Good Beer Guide. In order to qualify the venue must meet the ‘Candidate Venues’ criteria as listed in the linked document.
2. Fill in beer scores on WhatPub website each time you drink real ale at a Cheltenham pub/club.
At the end of Phase One, a short list will be compiled and distributed to members for Phase 2 to commence. Details will be available in early December.
Autumn Pub of the Season
Congratulations to The Royal Oak in Prestbury which has been voted Cheltenham CAMRA Autumn Pub of The Year 2019.
The autumn pub of the year award aims to recognise pubs that make an excellent venue to visit during the autumn months. Autumn is a time for country walks enjoying the autumn colours, the start of the National Hunt season and of course enjoying a pint. The Royal Oak is ideally situated for all these activities.
Presentation of the award took place on Saturday 28th September. Tom is seen receiving the award from branch chair John Crossley.
South West Region Club of The Year
Congratulations to Neil and the team at the Cheltenham Motor Club who once again have won South West Region Club of the Year.
They now go forward to the super regional stage of the competition with the hope of regaining the national pub of year title previously won in 2013 and 2017
GBG 2020 Launch event
The 2020 Good Beer Guide will be launched on 12th September. As usual, the branch have a number of copies for sale, at a reduced price for members, of £11 per copy.
If you would like to reserve a copy, please contact us via email at: secretary{at}cheltenhamcamra.org.uk
We will be holding a branch social and launch event, where you can pick up your reserved copies, in The Kemble, our current branch Pub-of-the-Year, from 7:30pm.