Well, it seems you might be if you are at all interested in cask beer (which is, I presume, why you are here reading this), and you most definitely are if you're a card carrying CAMRA-ist:

http://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/news.ma/article/82346

Strong words indeed from a ‘brewery’ that seems too eager to offer huge discounts to sell their beer in the free trade, and of course very happy to charge a lot more to those poor landlords that are tied down to buying beer from just one source. 

Now to be fair, there are some CAMRA members who may well be Hobbits – but such folk exist in all walks of life.  But I suspect that on the whole even they do some good.  And of course there are some real CAMRA-aks who don’t help anyone, but again, that applies throughout society.  I will even (happily) acknowledge that there are some breweries, the output of which would suggest the presence of a cupboard (an old musty one at that) at some stage in the process.  You have read the link, haven’t you..?  And yes, some brewers may even resemble a Hobbit under certain lights (or in my case apparently any light, and I’m not even a CAMRA member).

So what really brought this tirade on?  Who can say – certainly times are hard for the brewing giants (much like many large businesses at the moment), and it’s easy to see they may be a little jealous of the apparent success of many small brewers (but not all, by any means).  And quite recently, the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA, figure the acronym out yourselves) voted to put a size cap on member breweries – a size cap that relegated Marstons to the level of being an associate member, so this may also be the reason.  But to be fair to SIBA and it’s members (which include us of course), they have always striven to promote the need of the small brewer, but have slowly grown in line with the size of some of their members to the point that they are becoming the major voice for the brewing industry (other bodies represent other trades as well, such as other alcohol producers, and indeed pub owners).  As a result we were seeing two sides of the same industry pulling in different direction within the same body – for example Marstons (and others) have been anti the lower duty rate for small brewers, as it ‘offers an unfair advantage’.  Well, maybe it does, but even with this advantage, we cannot afford to compete on price with the big brewers, so it’s difficult to see what is so unfair.

No, it can only be that Stephen Oliver, MD of Marstons, has not read either the Hobbit (which sees a Hobbit steal all the treasures hoarded by the big nasty dragon by being good at what did, ie being small enough to defeat a monster – well OK, dragon), or The Lord Of The Rings, in which a group of Hobbits thwart and then finally defeat the Dark Lord Sauron in his plans on world domination.*

So bring it on Mr Oliver, for if CAMRA are the hobbitses, then be very careful.  Maybe Tolkein really could read the future after all…

*With apologies to Dave Maggs of West Berkshire Brewery (try Dr Hexters Wedding Ale, a very fine pint indeed) who, via the SIBA members forum, helped seed this comparison in my mind.