Candid Camra at beer festival

BURTON Beer Festival is now such a fixture in the life of the town, it is hard to conceive of a time when it did not feature on the social calendar.

100309 Spring Beer Fest - BM The event marks its 30th anniversary with the Spring Beer Festival, being held at Burton Town Hall today and tomorrow.

Mail reporter TIM FLETCHER met up with CAMRA members to look back on the past three decades, and ahead to the festival's future.

THE 1970s were dark days for real ale drinkers. Beers like the ubiquitous Watney's Red Barrel - derided by critics for its fizziness and lack of taste or character - dominated Britain's pubs.

The founding of the Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA) in 1971, sparked the beginning of a fightback by traditional cask-conditioned ales in the battle for the tastebuds of Britain's beer drinkers.

It was a campaign which would resonate in Burton, although Britain's brewing capital was less affected than other towns by the encroachment of keg beers, being the home to traditional brews likes Draught Bass, Ind Coope's Burton Ale and the famous Marston's Pedigree.

Mike Gibson, 61, joined the Burton and South Derbyshire branch of CAMRA on its formation in 1975 and has been a member ever since.

Over a pint of real ale in The Alfred, in Derby Street - one of several Burton Bridge Brewery-owned hostelries now flourishing in the town - Mike recalls his inspiration for joining the fledgling group.

"I was brought up in Yorkshire - our local was a Websters pub and you got a lovely pint of Pennine bitter," he says. "Then I moved to London. It was the time of the Watney 'revolution' (a popular advertising campaign of that era) and I appreciated for the first time the difference between real ale and keg beer."

After relocating to Burton in 1973, Mike witnessed the growth of the local CAMRA branch, formed after an initial meeting 'to test support' held at the Old Punch Bowl (now The Appleby) in Green Street.

After five years, members opted to follow the example of other branches in setting up their own beer festival, with Burton Town Hall the 'obvious venue'.

Whereas today, the event is dominated by small 'micro-breweries', with their wildly varying and utterly unique ales, just one such brewery had a presence at the first festival in September, 1980 - John Thompson, of Ingleby.

The other brewers represented were, by and large, the giants of the industry - Burton brewers like Bass, Allied, Marston's and Everards vying for space with rivals like Scottish and Newcastle and Mitchell and Butlers.

The event was an instant success with around 3,000 punters paying 20p each.

The venue remains one of the biggest selling points of the festival, according to CAMRA Burton and South Derbyshire branch chairman May Arthur, 69.

She says: "We get visitors coming from all over the world and they love the building - they say it reminds them of a cathedral or an old railway station."

The festival has continued to draw huge numbers of punters, with attendance peaking at 4,825 in 1999. Around a quarter of a million pints of beer are thought to have been consumed in the 30-year history of the summer festival.

Aside from a one-off venture into South Derbyshire, with an event entitled Swadfest in 1984, the format remained largely unchanged until the introduction in 1995 of a spin-off winter beer festival.

While attracting fewer numbers, the event became equally established, and for two years - in 2001 and 2002 - Burton and South Derbyshire CAMRA had the honour of hosting the National Winter Ales festival.

The winter festival jumped forward a season last year to put more space between it and the September event, and it is the spring festival which gets under way today - the fruition of many weeks of hard work, according to May Arthur.

"People don't realise how much graft is involved," she says. "We start making plans months in advance - we have to get the committee together, allocate all the various committee roles, book the Town Hall, arrange security, not to mention order all the beers."

The latter role is allocated to long-time member Dave Pantry, 65, who is tasked with scouring the beer guides to bring some of the best ales from around the country, as well as those closer to home.

In an age when 'binge drinking' culture dominates the headlines, one striking thing about the festival is the peaceable atmosphere which prevails.

Apart from an isolated incident involving one individual 'during the punk era', the festival has been trouble-free for 30 years, as CAMRA member Jim Ward, 72, explains.

"It is a remarkable thing because if you go into Burton town centre on a Friday or Saturday night all you see is aggro and police everywhere," he says.

"At the festival, you have 1,000 people in one building all drinking beer and you never hear so much as a cross word."

So what does the future hold? The Mail reported in January how the main summer festival was in jeopardy due to a shortage of volunteers, and the absence of a replacement for festival chairman Nik Antona, who is standing down.

May Arthur says she is hopeful this year's summer festival will take place, but stresses the need for a new generation of members to carry the torch and ensure the event continues to flourish.

Burton Spring Beer Festival takes place at the Town Hall today and tomorrow. Lunchtime sessions start at noon today and 11.30am tomorrow, with evening sessions running from 6pm to 11pm both nights.

Admission is £2 for lunchtime sessions and £5 for evening sessions (free and £2 respectively for CAMRA members). There is an additional charge of £2 for visitors wishing to keep their commemorative glass.

Further information is available at www.burtoncamra.org.uk.