Ash Corbett-Collins will be a familiar face to anyone connected to the Burton branch of CAMRA and he is about to become known at a national level too after this election to the CAMRA National Executive at last month’s AGM. Ash is proudly Burtonian and aside for a few years at university he lived in the town all his life until he moved to Birmingham about a year ago.
“When you go off to university, telling friends about your hometown is an important part of getting to know one another and I was always proud to tell them I’m from the capital of brewing, as well as the home of Marmite,” he laughs. “I think I was fortunate growing up in Burton, I was able to enjoy one of the best pubs scenes in the country, which I think was influential in my appreciation of real ale and my membership of CAMRA.”
It is May Bank Holiday weekend and for once the sun has timed it to perfection; up and down the country the pubs will be packed with folks out enjoying the weather and supping beer, the world’s greatest social lubricant. This is precisely what beer is all about, not scribbling reviews into a battered notebook.
“CAMRA suffers from an image problem,” surmises Ash. ” Many who are passionate about beer and pubs see us as the snobs with beards, sandals and bellies, ineffective, old-school and elitist.” See Viz Comic’s Real Ale Twats for further proof, however this is not his experience,” CAMRA and its members can be some of the most friendly, welcoming and passionate people. The change I want to see and be part of is welcoming the next generation of volunteers into the organisation. The people that already write beer blogs, organise events and want to promote good pubs and good beer. I want them to see a CAMRA that is passionate, effective and most importantly, fun!”
Although hailing from Burton real ale was not his first drink of choice: “I always struggled with finding what I enjoyed drinking. When I was old enough to start having a few with friends I always found the popular lagers too cold and fizzy,” he confesses. “When I went off to university I switched between preferring cider or Guinness. Then in my second year, a friend’s dad invited us out with him to visit some of his local pubs in the suburbs of Wolverhampton. My friend told me his dad often drank this stuff called ‘ale’ and that it didn’t suffer from the things I didn’t enjoy about lager. So I found myself on a late weeknight evening in April visiting some of the best pubs of the Black Country, discovering that I really enjoyed ‘ale’.” This was Ash’s road to Damascus; or rather his road to Wolverhampton. “It was my new drink of choice and I wanted to find out all about it. Joining CAMRA was a no-brainer and I signed up at the next Burton Beer Festival.”
He had a tentative start with CAMRA: “It took me several years to attend my first branch meeting; I was always worried I’d be out of my depth and that my amateur passion wouldn’t be appreciated. How wrong I was!”
Since then Ash has been the Branch Young Members Contact, Social Media Officer, Membership Secretary and Vice-Chairman. For the last two years he’s been on the national Communications Committee, and in October 2016 he was elected as the National Young Members Coordinator.
“I’m proud to say that the time has seen the Young Members Working Group grow to almost twenty active volunteers representing the Campaign’s 10,000 members aged 18-30 and we’re now ensuring that the views and needs of these members are being considered at all levels.”
Since moving to Birmingham he has been the Area Organiser for the Birmingham, Solihull and Stourbridge & Halesowen branches: “I’ve volunteered at beer festivals, the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC and worked in the press office at the Great British Beer Festival which I will be doing again this August.”
Ash stood for election at the recent controversial CAMRA AGM and now finds himself as one of the twelve on the National Executive.
“We are entrusted by the membership to oversee the Campaign. It’s important to recognise that whilst National Executive members do often chair particular committees and have a ‘portfolio’ so to speak, they act as a collective. Each of us has a different background and a different expertise; my experience as the Young Members Coordinator and as one of the next generation of volunteers will be invaluable.”
“The Special Resolutions that were voted on at the AGM aren’t in themselves change,” explains Ash, the initial fallout of the vote saw reports of membership cards being torn up in disgust. “They are words on paper that empower us to make sure the Campaign is effective. We will continue to fight for real ale, real cider and real perry, as we always have done, we will fight for pubs and clubs, as we already do. The members have decided what they want the objectives of the Campaign to be, but how we do that is not yet decided and is up to the volunteers to do what they think is best.
“It is clear to many that we are heading towards a crunch point when it comes to the number of active volunteers that we have. Already some prominent beer festivals have said they won’t be returning next year as they don’t have enough volunteers to plan them.”
This message applies very close to home especially in Burton, the local branch will celebrate their 40th Festival in 2019 and it could well be their last.
“In the program notes for Burton Beer Festival, Dickie Allen talked about the fact that after next year’s anniversary festival a number of the planning committee will be standing down after a number of years of fantastic service”
CAMRA needs new blood, not just locally but nationally.
“I’ve mentioned it a lot but we need to make CAMRA more fun, at all levels. That means getting rid of a lot of things we don’t really need.” Ash would like to streamline the campaign, to remove the less exciting aspects. “We need to become more effective, many of these meetings are spent reporting on what has already happened, not deciding what we are going to do. Report after report doesn’t make for a fun organisation. Information might be power, but only when it is effective. How many new members have walked into their first branch meeting, sat through an hour of reports on closed pubs and local breweries, listened to a brief moan about ‘that new craft place’ and then decided to not bother attending again; too many!”
Ash’s solution is a less formal approach: “I’m in favour of removing agendas from branch meetings and replacing them with discussion topics. If there is a local pub that is under threat it shouldn’t be an item on a packed agenda, it should be the focus of the meeting. Spend an hour talking about what action can be taken rather than waiting to report on it next month under the item agenda ‘Closed Pubs.’
“CAMRA doesn’t appeal to them in its current form; we need to focus on getting the next generation of volunteers involved with the Campaign. Burton is unique in having four young members on the Committee.” Ash reveals. “It isn’t because young people don’t like beer, or they don’t like volunteering; just look in your local pubs or at Labour’s momentum. Other than making our meetings fun and effective, we need to give them a reason to be involved.
“I started volunteering more to gain experience for my CV and I’m not alone in that,” involvement with festivals gives people opportunities that may not come their way otherwise. “Organising a beer festival is project management and doing the beer order is experience in procurement; we need to do more to highlight the benefits of volunteering. At the moment we make it sound like a job, with titles and requirements.”
And finally … the C word.
“Craft beer is not the enemy, it is not the reason pubs are closing and it is not the reason cask sales are down. For those outside CAMRA, good beer is good beer. Drinkers aren’t loyal to a particular dispense method; they want good beer, full stop.” Ash’s views echo those of The Beertonian. “When we pontificate about real ale and demonise craft we don’t persuade people to try real ale, we persuade them that we are zealots and elitists. Personally, I drink what I want to drink, when I walk into a pub I look at the taps and hand pulls and I choose to drink what I want in that moment. That ability to visit a good pub and to enjoy the benefit of choice is why I am a CAMRA member.”
I’ll drink to that!
I am safe in saying that that every reader of The Beertonian has drunk real ale; but have you ever gone as far as brewing it? Drinking beer is one thing, but to be involved in the actual production is altogether different. Without sounding dramatic, it is an almost spiritual experience; lugging the sacks of malt, weighing out the hops and the smell of the mash and the boil (probably the finest smells in existence), digging out the mash tun, pitching the yeast … it is very physical but incredibly rewarding.
