Welcome to the Furness Branch of CAMRA You can scroll text in each box if there is more than you can see! ByeBye! Marstons Not entirely unexpected given what has been happening recently at Carlsberg Britvic (or whatever they want to be know as now) but finally they have announced that the Brewery in Burton is to close next year. At lot of the press is guilty of assuming that this a the nail in the coffin of cask ale. They are completely forgetting the many other breweries that are actually working in this Country, some large and others smaller, most producing cask ale which can be found all over the place - assuming that that Pub Companies aren't restricting the pumps on the bar to their own brands. Of course, losing a major Brewery is a major event but I imagine that the loss of the actual Brewery in Burton-on-Trent is probably more of a blow than the loss of the actual beer brewed there recently. Let's see what happens but be assured that CAMRA is in at the thick of it trying to make sense of it all and hopefully helping find ways to preserve the brewing history at the site. Beer Scoring has changed! From June 1st 2026, how you score your beer for CAMRA has changed - gone are the half-scores and the old 0 to 5 (where 0 was 'No Real Ale'). Now, if a pub has no Cask Ale then there is a 'tick box' (not shown on this graphic) for that so if there is cask ale but it is poor then that is where the zero score is used now. There is a lot more information on CAMRA's website about beer scoring if you want to get the full picture but in the meantime, here is a simple chart for scorting. The Swan, Ulverston is Cumbria Pub of the Year! Previous and current winners of the Furness Pub of the Year, The Swan Ulverston has now become the Cumbria Pub of the Year 2026. PoTY winners from Furness, West Cumbria and Solway are judged to see which one will represent Cumbria in the next round on the way to the CAMRA national PoTY award later in the year. Competition is always strong so it is good to see The Swan coming out top this time. The presentation will be made sometime in June, more information once we have the details. Indie Beer CAMRA is supporting IndieBeer which is focussed on Independent Breweries rather than the global players. If you want to know if your beer is produced by an independent brewery rather than a Global Corporation then this is the site that you need. Find out if the beer you are drinking is produced by an Indie or not by going to their website on Indie Beer. Support your local independent breweries - we need them! Real Cider Producers CAMRA has a definition of what is real cider (you can find this and more information on the main CAMRA website - the link is at the bottom of our Cider and Perry Page) but as a helper, this is what we have as a list as of February 2025. Have a look and see if the cider in your pub conforms to the definition Real Cider Producers Feb 2025. Branch Presentations See the latest presentations for CAMRA awards for Furness pubs and breweries on the Presentations page. IMPORTANT - Handpump Hijack CAMRA has launched a campaign to raise awareness of Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company’s (CMBC) Fresh Ale concept, which sells keg versions of three of its cask beers through handpumps – long associated with real ales. We need all members to get involved in helping CAMRA with the campaign to identify pubs where this 'Fresh' ale fake handpump is used as it has a major impact on whether that pub can be considered for inclusion in the next Good Beer Guide, or even remain in the current Guide. 'Misleading Dispense' is one of the areas that CAMRA takes very seriously. To read more about this, visit CAMRA's dedicated page here
