He Ain't My Valentine

This video(courtesy of Alcofrolichap) of the CAMRA AGM has really shown it's chairman Colin Valentine(from now to be called Shirley on this blog) in his true light, a small minded member of the old guard who, instead of championing cask conditioned ale, which CAMRA have been doing well for 40 years now, slags off the so called 'bloggerati'(his words) for only liking 'the next beer'.



Does Shirley realise that beer bloggers help promote cask conditioned ale?
This speech has already spawned tonnes of debate on Martyn's blog and there's a new blogger in town here who has kicked off his blog with his opinion, they are both CAMRA members and both now part of the bloggerati.
My main beef with this rant from Shirley is that he uses the phrase bloggerati in a demeaning way, now I myself have used this phrase as just a name for a group of bloggers together(it's as good as any other description). The other beef with Shirley is that he's practically labelled us all as beer fashionista's who only chase 'the next beer'! What a pile of absolute tosh! Does anyone else think that Shirley is just slagging off that which he doesn't understand?

Does he include the Tandlemans, Zytophiles, Real Ale Girls and Reluctant Scoopers of this world in his childish rant? I name these few because I know they are CAMRA members and bloggers and they are all very eloquent at shouting about the good points of cask conditioned beer too, unlike Shirley it seems.
I'm NOT a member of CAMRA, I won't be as long as people like Shirley are in charge.
I'm not calling for CAMRA to change it's focus, I'm not calling for CAMRA to champion keg beer, I'm calling for CAMRA to elect a less small minded leadership and embrace the future because surely leadership like this is a thing of the past?
Call me bloggerati, call me adventurous, call me a wind-up merchant, just don't call me Shirley.