Hello Friends!
I hope that spring is treating you all well and are all very excited to get ramped up for beer festival season. I know our team is very excited to be involved with all the major events on the horizon, and are looking forward to seeing you all there.
In light of big social events coming up (Vancouver Craft Beer Week, Whistler Village Beer Festival, Squamish Beer Festival, etc…) I thought it would be a valuable time to touch on a subject that can be a bit of a sore-point, but one that I think is so very important: Member Decorum.
There is no question that our active CAMRA membership base is full of passionate like minded individuals. We are a community of people that likes good beer, that wants to see growth in community and that wants to learn, educate and advocate. But for all our commonalities, we are equally as chock full of differences. I may think that a dry Irish Stout is the best beer style in the world, whereas someone with a hop focused palate may see an Imperial IPA as the Mecca of beer styles. From an advocacy standpoint, some people may want to see us rekindle the FUSS campaign, when others may want to see us take on the government in a more direct fashion. Even when it comes to education programming we can differ. Some people will want us to focus on accessible programming for new beer drinkers in a classroom setting, others will want something more hands on in a brewery or a homebrew setting so they can really get their hands dirty. The short and long of it is, none of us see things the same way; it is a blessing and a curse.
This duality in our culture is very apparent when it comes to beer taste. Even my closest beer drinking friends and I disagree on favourite breweries and beers. I have been placed in a few conversations in the past months in which industry members are concerned about people in pubs and breweries throwing the CAMRA name around and calling out – what they believe to be – lesser quality local breweries or beers. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with disagreeing with people, in fact, most breweries welcome constructive criticism. Using myself as an example, if you look at my Untappd logs, (which is an app I suggest for hobby beer drinkers) you will see that I don’t like everything and I definitely state my opinion on beers. If I wasn’t pleased with the brewing technique, I am always sure to say something constructive like “Feel like the additional dry hop didn’t add much” or, if I simply didn’t like it I will either not comment or say something like “Not my cup of tea.”
My call to action for members is simple: Every single one of you represents CAMRA, our interests and our reputation – so please act as such! Remember that as our organization gets bigger and gains more influence people will be more affected by our words. It’s important to remember our root mantra, which is “Join us in Support of Craft Beer!” Does that mean you have to like everything? Of course not! I have always firmly believed that “craft” doesn’t necessarily equate to “good”, especially because “good” is subjective. But it is important to respect the members of our community in their efforts to brew and do what they want to do. I hope that we can all agree on this point and I look forward to seeing happy, inclusive and encouraging CAMRA members in the coming months! As always, if you would like to talk you can always email me or tweet at me @davidjp87.
David Perry
President, CAMRA BC – Vancouver Branch
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