Don’t we all, members or not, have a love/hate relationship with CAMRA? Yes, there are a few things about that annoy me, infuriate me even. But Stephen Oliver, managing director of the Marston’s Beer Company, really has got himself wound up.

In today’s Morning Advertiser, in an article entitled ‘It’s hard to keep the gobby hobbits happy’, he takes issue with CAMRA members over – well, here’s a taster:

“Apparently, according to the malcontents of CAMRA’s sandal-clad, whisker-stroking storm troopers, a guest ale’s not a guest ale unless it comes from some oddball brewery down a country lane and is served with bits in it under a name like Knackered Old Cripplecock.”

He says landlords are being egged on to get a wider choice of guest ale “by the itinerant CAMRA bunch who go from pub to pub, looking for their next eclectic pint brewed in a cupboard with the dubious benefit of progressive beer duty. They’re a gobby lot, the beardies.”

Not content with having a go at CAMRA members and microbrewers, he even has a sideways pop at SIBA for not financially supporting Cask Ale Week.

Okay, the central tenor of Oliver’s argument – that a guest ale from a brewery such as Marston’s – or its Jennings or Ringwood brands, for instance – is as valid a guest ale as, from down my way, say, Coastal or Lizard breweries – is not an unreasonable point. But why then the invective?

Yes, as he concludes, Cask Ale Week is “a golden opportunity” to promote the sector, so why then round off by saying it’s a reason to “show that to enjoy cask ale you don’t have to have mislaid your razor, wear sock with your sandals or have a beer gut the size of Rotherham.”

For a senior player in the industry to have made such insulting remarks about so many of the people who are, frankly, keeping him in a job is unjustified and malicious. Yes, we all have a laugh now and again about the beard and sandals thing, but CAMRA has moved on.

I can only think of one reason why Marston’s doesn’t want to compete with the micros on an even bar – and that is because they fear the competition.

(Incidentally, in the same issue Roger Protz, CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide editor, enjoys Marston’s hospitality at Lord’s to launch the firm’s sponsorship of English cricket this summer)