York CAMRA is a branch of the national Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). CAMRA is a well-established national organisation with more than 160,000 members which aims to promote traditional real ale and pubs.

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Small Brewers’ Relief

On 21 July 2020, the government announced it had concluded a review into the Small Brewers’ Relief and would reduce the threshold at which the amount of relief would start to taper off from brewers producing 5,000 HL per year, to breweries producing 2,100 HL per year. This means that small brewers who are producing more than 2,100 HL or those just below and looking to expand, will be hit with a larger tax bill. This includes a number of our wonderful local breweries.

You can help by signing the Anspach and Hobday petition to reverse the change https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/334066

CAMRA’s position

CAMRA believes that the Small Brewers’ Relief Scheme is vital to a thriving beer market, and to ensuring choice for consumers. We have always been concerned about the proposal of removing relief from the smallest brewers and maintain that this should not happen without broad industry consensus – which has not been achieved.

We do not believe that the Treasury’s intention to increase the scale of production over which the relief is applied by reducing the lower threshold is the correct way to reform Small Brewers’ Relief.

CAMRA will be joining calls for:

• The Government to publish the evidence of how it arrived at the preferred approach of lowering the point at which a brewery receives the full relief from 5,000HL to 2,100HL
• The Government to publish the full detail of its preferred approach to taxing small brewers at all levels of production
• The Government to change its preferred approach and reinstate the 5,000HL threshold up to which a brewery will continue to receive full relief

We remain committed to campaigning for an increase in the top threshold for relief to 200,000HL, in line with calls from both SIBA and the Small Brewers Duty Reform Coalition.

We will not be advocating a specific solution for changing the curve of relief at this stage – only that the curve should be smoothed by increasing the range of production covered through an increase to the top threshold, rather than the reduction of full duty relief at the bottom end of the production scale.

We remain hopeful that the industry can find agreement on what reforms to the relief curve above the 5,000HL threshold should look like, in order to remove current disincentives to growth, and promote healthy competition, cask beer, and consumer choice.

We believe in constructive and positive campaigning, and attacking or calling for boycotts of breweries in CAMRA’s name will not be considered appropriate as part of our strategy for campaigning on Small Brewers’ Relief.

What are CAMRA doing?

• Sharing calls to sign the Anspach and Hobday parliament.uk petition from the national CAMRA social media accounts
• Writing to the Treasury to restate our position and set out our asks to the Government.
• Emailing all members (who’ve opted into emails) next week.

What can you do?

You can sign the petition to reverse the change https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/334066

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York CAMRA beer festival 2020 is cancelled – so we’re running York Locale Festival instead!

Our annual festival could not go ahead this year, so our celebration of beer is moving to the pubs of York.

York pubs and our locale breweries need our support more than ever this year so our locale festival will aim to keep you up to date on what’s on where so you can go out and enjoy a great beer in one of our wonderful pubs.

See the festival website for more information and follow our twitter accounts @YorkLocaleFest & @beerfestyork & like us on Facebook to for updates.

We plan to return to the Racecourse in 2021, provisional dates are 15-18^th September 20201. I do hope to see you then.

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The Slip Inn is our Pub of the year 2020

We are delighted to announce that The Slip Inn, on Clementhorpe is the York Branch Pub of the Year for 2020. The pub remains closed as the layout does not allow for safe social distancing. We look forward to presenting the award when they open.

Paul Crossman, landlord and pubs campaigner gave us his response to the award (click through to read in full):

2020 has turned out to be a strange and very difficult year in so many ways. Most of us have never experienced a time like it, and this very much includes the pub world. We were among the very first businesses to close, and will inevitably be among the last to reopen, something which is especially true for small community-orientated pubs like our own.

While essential workers have toiled to keep our nation fed, functioning and as safe as possible, the employees of tens of thousand of pubs have by necessity become “essential non-workers”, furloughed en-masse as part of an effort to salvage as much of the hospitality industry as possible for the future. The kind of close social experience that is our true stock-in-trade has been rendered temporarily, tragically, toxic, as we have all collectively found ourselves with no choice but to suppress our natural, normally very healthy, social instinct to gather and mingle.

So it would seem, on the face of it, a strange and perhaps frustrating year for The Slip Inn to find itself honoured with the award of York CAMRA’s Pub of the Year.

Yet in time-honoured tradition we have chosen instead to look on the bright side. Click through to read response in full

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Stay in touch while we social distance

CAMRA has created a virtual pub for beer drinkers and pub-goers to get together for a beer and tackle the loneliness and social isolation felt during the Coronavirus lockdown and closure of the nation’s pubs.

Within the walls opened The Online Arms on facebook welcoming locals.

And keep an eye out for online tasting sessions from some of your favourite breweries such as Turning Point and Tiny Rebel.

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York Branch Area

The York branch covers an extensive geographical area, which includes Selby, Tadcaster and rural parts of North and East Yorkshire, as well as the city of York itself.

View map full size

Neighbouring us is the Scarborough Branch of CAMRA who have their own website.

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Branch Meetings and Socials

In response to the COVID-19 crisis, all upcoming branch socials and meetings are cancelled. We look forward to welcoming you to them in the nearest future.

All events are published on our website calendar, along with local beer festivals.

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Ouse Boozer – our quarterly magazine

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FAQ for Beer festival organisers and licensees

Beer festival organisers – we can help get the word out on our website and social media pages. Check out our Beer festival organiser FAQ page.

Licensees – if you want to know more about real ale, locale, get Ouse Boozer delivered for your pub, then check out our  Licensee FAQ page.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for get in touch – here’s our contacts page.

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Unspoilt and heritage pubs