Natasha's Website : Natasha on Tour

Almost everyone who indulges in the strange arts of Pub Ticking and Beer Ticking (or Scooping as it is often known) will tell you there are no rules to determine what counts as a tick. Nevertheless, most tickers will have at least some guidelines of their own to which they will stick more or less rigidly. Some will have rules that make things more challenging, or less, such that they may indulge that aspect of the ticking game they enjoy the most. The Moorfield Rules for Pub and Beer Ticking, therefore, should not be looked upon as any sort of didactic guide nor should they be read as criticism of the way in which others may pursue their pastime because neither is intended. These rules reflect how I like to do things. I guess they say a lot more about me than about the hobby but I'll leave that for others to decide.

www.scoopergen.co.uk 

There is little argument that without the efforts of CAMRA in the 1970's, real ale as we know it would have almost completely disappeared from the commercial beer market in the United Kingdom.

Among a significant proportion of scoopers, CAMRA, however, is not held in high esteem. It seems, too, that for some within CAMRA, the enmity is mutual.

For my part, I have been a long time member and remain so (or at least Boy does) if, for no other reason, than it is cost effective to do so. On the plus side they do organise a lot of good ticker-friendly beer festivals where many pleasant afternoons are whiled away each year and, in spite its shortcomings, the Good Beer Guide, in my view, remains an unsurpassed guide when seeking out decent hostelries in unfamiliar parts of the country.

On the downside, CAMRA is essentially a volunteer organisation and in common with all volunteer organisations, has ended up being run by tossers. As sociable as beer tickers are, there exists in most of us, I feel, a streak of 'lone wolfishness' or even selfishness that makes it difficult to for us to deal with people that don't share our points of view and so we end up letting the tossers get on a run the show. There are few organisations I have ever been a member of that I haven't resigned from in a fit of pique!

It is certainly true that some CAMRA beer festivals are distinctly ticker unfriendly; it seems to me, without naming names, that some CAMRA branches make a positive virtue out of discouraging tickers from attending their festivals. As I am wont to remark about certain festivals that arbitrarily withhold beers from sale, you wouldn't expect to go to Marks and Spencer and have the manager say to you �I'm sorry, madam, you can't buy that dress, we're saving it for later.�

Some people accuse CAMRA of not supporting small brewers. I'm not altogether sure this is necessarily true but I have yet to hear a sensible answer as to why my local CAMRA festival failed to order any beer from the only active brewery in our borough. Over the years, CAMRA, while it has made all the right noises about the activities of the big money-grubbing players in the beer industry still seems happy to cosy up to these companies. CAMRA, it seems to me, are a little too concerned these days with making money than with actually championing the rights of consumers and real ale enthusiasts; a little too worried about protecting its revenue streams than it is with promoting and celebrating choice and diversity. It is difficult to point to any real successes that CAMRA's campaigns have actually achieved in recent times and I wonder if it is still an effective campaigning body or just a conduit for information from suppliers to customers.

Our bitter,
Which art in barrels, hallowed be thy drink,
Thy will be drunk,
I will be drunk,
At home as I am in the tavern.
Give us this day our foamy head,
And forgive us our spillages,
As we forgive those who spill against us,
And lead us not to incarceration
But deliver us from hangovers,
For thine is the beer,
The bitter and the porter,
Forever and ever,

Barmen.