What We Do

Nationally, CAMRA runs many campaigns on all manner of issues, in pursuit of its vision and mission. To find out more visit the national About us page.

Locally, this is our Constitution, as adopted at a Special General Meeting on 8th September, 2023.
Our main tasks, which we thoroughly enjoy performing each year are:

• Running a Beer & Cider Festival in Hitchin,
• Selecting the best pubs in North Herts for our part of the Good Beer Guide,
• Selecting pubs for local awards,
• Collecting local news for our part of the all-Hertfordshire newsletter, Pints of View,
  and of course
• Inviting you to join us at social events throughout the year

Surveying pubs for possible inclusion in the Good Beer Guide is a serious business.  It tends to involve trying many beers at lots of pubs; the only way to judge beer quality at pubs is to drink the stuff on site!  Hopefully, most of it will be good, but there are always a few which don’t make the grade.  We try to spread the work among as many members as possible, and your help with this ‘arduous’ task would be much appreciated.  All you need to do is record what you drink, when, where, and how good or bad it is on CAMRA’s 0-5 rating scale (the National Beer Scoring Scheme).  You can enter them on the What Pub website, interactively on the GBG app (for Android and iPhone), comment on this website, or send them to us in emails, on spreadsheets or on the back of beermats.  If your favourite pub has never got into the GBG, you need to tell us how great it is.

We present the following local awards to the good pubs in our area, the recipients being decided by members at Branch Meetings, and we try to get as many members as possible to the actual presentations:

• Pub-of-the-Year (this one goes into the County competition, and may progress on to the Regional and National levels)
• Community Pub-of-the-Year
• Most Improved Pub-of-the-Year.

Every two months, we submit articles to the all-Hertfordshire Pints Of View newsletter, covering branch activities, pub news, brewery news, events, awards, etc.  If you know of any beer related news, do let us know, so we can pass it on.  We also rely on members to distribute the newsletters to the pubs, and volunteers are always needed to complete our coverage of the branch area.  So if you can spare an evening or two every two months to visit some pubs take and them some newsletters, please let us know.