What is CAMRA?

The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) is one of the most influential consumer organisations in the UK with over 130,000 members. From its formation in the early 1970s CAMRA has become the largest consumer group focused on a single product.

The present thriving real ale business (over 70 new breweries started in the past year alone) is in no small part due to CAMRA's existence, providing a ready "audience" for the products. CAMRA is a decentralised organisation, and most of its work is done by volunteers at local level, reinforcing national drives.

Our Local Area
The West Dorset branch of CAMRA is a group of about 450 members. Our aims are to promote the interests of the beer (and cider) drinking consumers and communities within West Dorset.  

Organising Festivals
We help to manage three separate Beer Festivals in the area each year:
Dorchester Beerex
first weekend in February in partnership with Round Table
Wykefest
mid-July in partnership with Value House, Wyke Regis
Weymouth Octoberfest first weekend in October in conjunction with Weymouth Pavilion

Brewery and other trips
In addition to the above Beer Festivals we also run trips to breweries and to other festivals each year. These events and other relevant ones are listed here.

Campaigning
We publish a newsletter - the Giant Dongle - five times a year linked to these beer festivals with extra issues for Christmas and Spring.
In addition there is a West Dorset Pub Guide which was produced in its third edition in 2010 and reprinted with updates in 2011.
We also choose a "Pub of The Year" annually and also select which West Dorset pubs will go into the Good Beer Guide.

Our Group
The local branch is run by an annually elected committee of about eight people. We meet every 2nd Wednesday in the month at various venues around the area. Anyone is welcome to these meetings which are listed here on the web site.

We are always glad to see new faces at the meetings. Although we would like you to join there is no pressure to take the leap straight away nor to take on any workload that you do not want to.

Any additional information on what is going on in the area is appreciated - it is a large area and its not easy to get around it! Please let us know any information / news.

So if you enjoy a pint or are just interested come along to the next meeting - we would love to see you!