It stands for the CAMpaign for Real Ale, and was a pressure group set up in the 1970's to improve the quality of English beer. When I was at University in the 1960's, our nearest pub used to sell Tetley's beer, and a poor weak sinner's brew it was. The best common cask ales you could get were Watney's Red Barrel, and Whitbread Tankard, and they were NOT good. You could get some very decent local ales on draught - Timothy Taylor's "Landlord" bitter was one, and Theakston's "Old Peculier", was another (this is how it is spelled, incidentally) but as I say these were only available in areas around the brewery, as a rule. Some good bottled ales, notably Newcastle Brown, were also available.But then along came CAMRA, and things started to improve. Micro-breweries started up, and their ales were so much better, they started taking lumps out of the bigger breweries, who found they had to up their game. So now in most places, you can get at the minimum a half-way decent pint, you can get some seriously good stuff in bottles from the micro-breweries, and there are still tiny new breweries being set up all the time. There's one about 20 miles away from us so small that they only sell their ale in firkins - 8 gallon casks - they haven't even got to the size where they can bottle it.
