Editing Campaign for Real Ale (section)

==History==
[[File:Camra bar towel.JPG|thumb|right|CAMRA logo on a bar towel]]
[[File:CAMRA Covent Garden Beer Exhibition 1975 half-pint glass.jpg|thumb|upright|First National CAMRA Beer Festival held at Covent Garden, London, 1975]]
The organisation was founded on 16 March 1971 in Kruger's Bar, [[Dunquin]], [[County Kerry]], Ireland,<ref>{{cite web|title=Key Events in CAMRA's History |url=http://www.camra.org.uk/camrahistory |access-date=25 July 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120919234946/http://camra.org.uk/camrahistory |archive-date=19 September 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35917816|work=[[BBC News]]|title=Should there be a crusade to save British pubs?|first=Harry|last=Low|date=31 March 2016|access-date=31 March 2016}}</ref> by Michael Hardman, Graham Lees, Jim Makin, and Bill Mellor, who were opposed to the growing mass production of beer and the homogenisation of the British [[brewing]] industry. The original name was the Campaign for the Revitalisation of Ale.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/4810832/Still-bitter-after-all-these-years.html|title=Still bitter after all these years|newspaper=The Telegraph|access-date=17 July 2009|last=Neill|first=Richard| location=London| date=9 November 2000}}</ref> Following the formation of the Campaign, the first annual general meeting took place in 1972, at the Rose Inn in Coton Road, [[Nuneaton]]. 

Early membership consisted of the four founders and their friends. Interest in CAMRA and its objectives spread rapidly, with 5,000 members signed up by 1973. Other early influential members included Christopher Hutt, author of ''Death of the English Pub'', who succeeded Hardman as chairman, Frank Baillie, author of ''The Beer Drinker's Companion'', and later the many times ''[[Good Beer Guide]]'' editor, [[Roger Protz]].{{cn|date=October 2024}}

In 1991, CAMRA had 30,000 members across the UK and abroad and, a year later, helped to launch the European Beer Consumers Union.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About the Campaign for Real Ale |url=https://camra.org.uk/about/who-we-are |access-date=2025-03-09 |website=CAMRA - The Campaign for Real Ale |language=en}}</ref>