Brighton & South Downs CAMRA

Brighton & South Downs CAMRA

CAMRA stands for The Campaign for Real Ale, a British consumer organisation founded 1973 to campaign for the quality of traditional British beers. It has local branches all over Britain and the Brighton & South Downs Branch is one of the five branches covering the County of 'Sussex' (i.e. East & West Sussex).

BRANCH COMMITTEE 2011-12

Chairman Roger Coton chairman@brightoncamra.org.uk

Secretary Paul Free secretary@brightoncamra.org.uk

Treasurer John Kirkland treasurer@brightoncamra.org.uk

President Pete Coppard president@brightoncamra.org.uk

Webmaster Adrian Towler

CONTENTS & LINKS

EVENTS List – Festivals, Socials, Trips & Meetings.
PUB NEWS by our Branch President – a collection of news and views on pubs in our Branch Area.
YOUNG MEMBERS' PAGE for the under 35-ish reader.
BREWERIES in Sussex, allegedly 24 of them.
SUSSEX CAMRA BRANCHES – The four other CAMRA Branches' websites in Sussex: Arun & Adur, North Sussex, South East Sussex and Western Sussex.
SUSSEX DRINKER – our local CAMRA magazine for Sussex. The link takes you to the Western Sussex website where you can download it as a PDF. Winter 2011-12 edition.
PUB OF THE YEAR 2012 Download the Nomination Form for Branch 2012 Pub of the Year from this link (PDF, 52KB).
ALE TRAIL – Our Summer Ale Trail is over for this year but will be back next May.
National CAMRA Website

Our 2011-12 Branch Chairman is
ROGER COTON

BRIGHTON & SOUTH DOWNS CAMpaign for Real Ale

Over 1,100 CAMRA members live in our area, which is Brighton & Hove, Lewes, Newhaven, Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill, Shoreham-by-Sea and the area in between. So what do we do, apart from drink beer and run this website?

1. Organise the annual South Downs Beer Festival in The Old Town Hall & Corn Exchange, Lewes, Fri 15 and Sat 16 June 2012.

2. Select the pubs from our area for inclusion in CAMRA's annual Good Beer Guide (normally 36 entries).

3. Choose one as our Pub of The Year. Our 2011 winner is The Evening Star, Brighton. Runner-up is The Brewers Arms, Lewes and our Country Pub of the Year is The Horns Lodge Inn, South Street, South Chailey nr. Lewes. NOMINATION FORM for 2012 Pubs

4. Organise weekly socials, usually on a Thursday or Friday night, in pubs that serve good real ale, run surveying and recruiting trips locally by minibus, and visits to breweries.

5. Assist in organising the Sussex Beer & Cider Festival at Hove Town Hall, 8 – 10 March 2012, which is in our Branch area.

6. Help with the distribution of Sussex Drinker, quarterly newsletter about real ale, available free in lots of Sussex pubs.

7. Represent CAMRA and campaign on CAMRA issues in our area, minibus trips to pubs with literature, stalls at festivals, etc.

8. Liaise with and report on the three Breweries on our patch to CAMRA headquarters, and put their news in the 'Bru News' section of Sussex Drinker.

9. Run a Summer ALE TRAIL and its associated 'Cider Rider' - from May to October around our area, with prizes for visiting 20, 30 or 40 pubs.

10. And sometimes, publish a local Pubs Guide. The last one was in 2001 and is well out of date. There are many interesting pub websites generally available now so we have given up listing 'good' pubs in our Branch Area. The Ale Trail page lists 40 participating real ale pubs, otherwise for recommendations please see CAMRA's current Good Beer Guide.

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