Went to a CAMRA run festival for the first time and came away disappointed. I drank a numver of cask beers, some quite nice others a bit nondescript and a few that were horrible and badly kept, but nothing blew my socks off. There was more variety of flavour and interesting good beer (in my admittedly excellent) local than in the entire festival. The volunteers - grumpy 50/60 somethings nearly without exception did little to make folk feel welcome and were a terrible advert for their organisation.
The whole event mase made question whether CAMRA has had its day or at the very least needs a radical overhaul or become an echo chamber for antisocial aged male wonks
Currently the whole ethos seems to be outdated, absolutist and misguided. I get that in the 70s when chains were trying to inflict weak lager and smooth flow bitter on folk, but the world has moved on and there's a range of flavoursome and original beers brewed across the UK using kegs. Their absurd mantra of 'Cask good, keg bad' seems even more absurd when you try mass produced Keg bitter like doom bar or green king ipa, both of which are bland and unappetising.
I certainly won't be back.