Hit the nitro! it sounds like something out of Knight Rider doesn’t it? no I didn’t think so either, as we all know KITT uses a turbo boost, not nitro.

You may or may not have read about the big brewhaha kicking off between CAMRA and BrewDog regarding kegging some of their beer at the GBBF (Great British Beer Festival) it’s mostly rather petty tit for tat but it does create a bridge to an issue that over the coming months and years we will be undoubtedly seeing more of, craft beer in a keg. Like it or not ‘craft beer’ in kegs isn’t going anywhere so CAMRAs decision to pull the plug seems a little short sighted, perhaps both parties just need to sit down properly and talk it over, this would be helped greatly by BrewDog who brew some fine beer indeed pulling their head down from the clouds, they’re not the messiahs they often claim to be, just rather good at marketing.

The ‘rebellious’ BrewDog (available in Tescos…) like to get busy with the fizzy, or busy wit’ fizzy if you prefer the Bo Selecta Craaaaig Daaavid approach. So what’s the big deal? well it all comes down to the definitions of ale, live yeast, filtering etc, yes I can hear the snores already but kegging dominance in short is what CAMRA was setup to stop happening; but more importantly it looks to me like a good old clashing of opinion. In Europe and America this practise of kegging is common, my co-writer Hoppkins is a huge fan of American craft beers and has sampled them many times on their home soil, I myself loved many of the beers we had in Amsterdam, again all kegged, in-fact some of the Flying Dog beers I had out there rank as the best I have ever had though I am massively curious as to what they taste like without kegging.

Is there room for both? I don’t think there’s a choice as both exist and both will continue to push forward but you can’t blame CAMRAs defensive approach with the taste destroying reputation kegging has, this can’t be helped by some of the UK brewers putting on some very poor shows, both BrewDogs- Punk IPA and Thornbridge – Jaipur are brilliant brews, but truly dreadful on keg, and I might point out at this point I have tried them both more than twice at different places and times so it wasn’t just a bad batch.

For now it seems a lot more toys are going to be chucked out the pram, but it seems a genuine shame to have beers specifically brewed for kegging as they do in the US and Europe snubbed because of this reason, for now this debate seems set to roar on.

Of much more importance is the Nottingham CAMRA branches confirmation that BrewDog will be at the 2011 Nottingham Beer Festival but as last year on cask, not keg!