CAMRA's girl power

The Campaign for Real Ale is modernising, starting with the appointment of its first female chairman. Michelle Perrett speaks to Paula Waters.

Beards, sandals and a bunch of strange looking men drinking murky ale seem to be the stereotype of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

But the consumer group is working hard to widen the appeal of both beer and the organisation to a more female-friendly arena.

A major change began at the top when it appointed a new chairman - a woman of all things - back in March. Paula Waters, 44, is the first female chairman of the consumer organisation. She is a teacher with a husband and a six-year-old son. Although she has a busy lifestyle she is determined that in her three years as chairman she makes some impact on the organisation.

Paula took on the role as the first female chairman in April following an active background in CAMRA since the early 1980s.

She has previously been chairman of CAMRA books, organised the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF), and been regional director of the North West and vice-chairman of the group since 2000.

"I never really started off with the ambition to be chairman. I wanted to be organiser of the GBBF," admits Paula.

"But someone whose opinion I value suggested I run. I thought about it and decided I would."

To run for chairman Paula had to be a member of the national committee - the group of 12 is voted in by members of CAMRA. After achieving this Paula was then elected as chairman by her fellow committee members.

As chairman she has a number of ambitions that she aims to achieve.

"I want to take the campaign forward and increase our membership to hit the target of 100,000 over the next few years. We also want to get more men and women trying beer in general."

As a busy mother and wife with a full-time job she has a hard three years ahead of her. "I am doing a lot as chairman but I'm lucky as my husband is also heavily involved in CAMRA," she said.

CAMRA and the GBBF have been criticised for failing to appeal to a younger crowd - and in particular to women. Paula disagrees: "At GBBF there were lots of young people attending and many people working behind the bars were female and under 26."

During the festival Paula called on the industry to brew a beer especially for women. "These days cars are targeted at women and face creams and chocolate at men!

"These industries recognised the need to move on from their core target markets in the 1980s, but 20 years on beer is still seen as being macho.

"Brewers have to face up to the fact that the beer market is declining and they need to attract more women to drink beer," she argued.

To do this she believes that brewers should be changing their marketing tactics.

"We need to prove women can drink beer and enjoy beer too.

"A lot of beers are already suitable for women and the GBBF gave women the opportunity to taste them. A lot of women use pubs but many of them would not think of trying an ale."

She also believes the way to get round this would be to present beer more attractively to females as well as allowing women to try ale through sampling.

"More could be done with glassware but the expense is perceived as prohibitive and everyone is too frightened to do it. A smaller amount - say a third of a pint glass - would appeal more to women," she argues.

Latest campaign issues for CAMRA​

During the GBBF the group launched a three-way action plan to boost the local beer and pubs market.

CAMRA claims that consolidation in pub ownership, increasing separation of brewing and pub ownership and the prevalence of large town centre theme bars is threatening the future of traditional community pubs, local breweries and consumer choice.

• the majority of non-brewing pub chains restrict the beers that their licensees can buy to those on a list, supplied centrally.

CAMRA claims that the system restricts access to the market for small local brewers and leads to the same old national brands ending up on most bars.

CAMRA wants all pub chains to let their licensees buy additional real ale of their choice from local breweries if they so wish.

the introduction in 2002 of progressive beer duty for brewers producing less than 30,000 hectolitres has been universally successful, claims CAMRA, with hundreds of local microbrewers benefiting from the ability to invest in new equipment, marketing and staff.

CAMRA is calling on the government to increase the limit to include family brewers.

rate relief to be extended to 100 per cent for urban community pubs where a community local is under threat of closure, a pub sources a certain percentage of its beers and food from local suppliers or where a pub provides or hosts other facilities (such as a post office) that benefit the community and are no longer available locally.