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The postings below are the personal views of the members who provided them. They do not represent the views of the Campaign for Real Ale Ltd, or the Glasgow & West of Scotland Branch.

Date	Name	Message
18/02/26	Tom Davidson	For info, The Balloch House Hotel is now completely closed, while it enjoys a £280K makeover. (which explains the dearth of cask at the weekend) Reopening has been scheduled for mid March!
31/01/26	Tom Davidson	Amazed, and slightly amused, while listening to this morning's Radio 4 'From Our Own Correspondent' (31/01/26 11:30). BBC's Laura Bicker, while covering PM Starmer's latest jaunt to China/Japan, visits a 'pub' in Bejing and then happens to namedrop Overtone beer which it appears is regularly on sale there! Perhaps a venue for a future social? :) Check out paragraph entitled 'The long-gone good times' Elsewhere and completely off topic. Good to see the Three Judges has changed hands. The blackboard is now offering three1/3 glasses of any ale on the blackboard, which is a new thing in there (sorry can't recall the price).
15/01/26	Paul Murray	Kudos to our branch Secretary Paul Whitehead for getting through to the Jeremy Vine lunchtime show on Radio 2 yesterday and extolling the virtues of CAMRA and real ale. Dry January is OK for some who may have overdone it over Christmas & New Year but for the sensible drinkers amongst us, let's get out to our local pub in January and keep them in business?!
17/11/25	Paul Murray	It's worthy of note that The Kittoch pub in Stewartfield, East Kilbride has reopened after a refurbishment and had two handpumps with complimentary dark and golden ales on offer. With fresh beer and brand new pipes, the Grene King Fireside winter ale was absolutely delightful. It should be stressed that no buses (that I know of) serve this area of East Kilbride and that may influence whether real ale remains a permanent fixture.
13/11/25	Emily Green	This post is in regards to the concept of the name of the organisation and "real ale" I wish to not name the brewery but having a conversation with them they often feel upset around the wording of "real ale" as if one brewery is more valid than another because the connotations around one beer being real and the other brewery who doesn't produce beer to have a secondary fermentation in cask or bottle to be not real and fake. As an organisation and to survive into the future I believe CAMRA needs to embrace all small independent breweries especially when these breweries are in pubs that sit alongside cask ales. I'm a beer lover and I enjoy lots of different beers from different breweries. I talk to brewers a lot. I would feel disrespectful to a brewery having a CAMRA membership and a branch position if we are saying with the phraseology "real ale" that one breweries beer is more valid than the other in the eyes of CAMRA.
30/09/25	Paul Murray	It's disconcerting to discover that our revered organisation is in dire financial straits. That situation seems to be at odds with the disclosure that CAMRA members would get free admission to all CAMRA led festivals from next year.🤔 I'm sure somebody will explain the logic of that to me! My take on admission charges? They're now too high with yet another glass forced on you, that regular attendees don't really want as they're kitchen cupboards are crammed full of previous years glasses! I recall going down to Wigan a few years ago and took my preferred half pint goblet shaped glass from a Troon festival. Now, they charged you £3 for the glass on entry, but if you didn't want to leave the venue with the glass your £3 was returned. Net result, I bartered my way in for free.😗 I would suggest that our Briggait festival is justified in charging an admission charge just to try and offset the rental charges for that venue, but the option to buy a souvenir glass should be - well optional. Maybe an optional 50p charge for those that want a printed programme might also be considered to offset printing costs? Just my threepence worth.😉 Sixpence worth being submitted to the next Guzzler Winter magazine!
13/09/25	Tom Mckeown	Bon Accord has a couple of Salopian beers. The Oracle is best beer I have had for some time
14/08/25	Emily Green	Given the debate around 50p vouchers I would like to voice my opinion on the situation. We go to pubs we go to beer festivals. Some of the beers are priced at GRAF at £4.40 a pint. In Wetherspoons the same beer depending on location can vary £1.99 to £3.10. When we go to GRAF people have no qualms over £4.40 a pint at a festival but when it comes to the pub and in particular Wetherspoons and vouchers it seems to be a race to the bottom. The brewery needs to make a living. It has to turn a profit to be a commercially viable business. Then in turn the pub also needs to have to make a profit as well to be a sustainable business. £1.99 a pint without taking a voucher into consideration is terrific value for a pint in my local Wetherspoons. We have minimum unit pricing laws. If we had no MUP then I would personally feel uncomfortable with the 50p voucher as I'm devaluing beer by having it sold to me so cheaply. I want brewers to survive and to make a sustainable living. I want pubs to be able to turn a profit on the ale that they sell and not relying on other category sales in the bar to make the business run. The likes of The State Bar it's £4.80 a pint. In The Lismore it's £5.10. No one ever quibbles around the pricing there. The beer is well kept. It's nice pubs and good atmosphere. It's almost like Wetherspoons is seen as a special case where it should be you should be able to obtain a pint for as cheap as humaley as possible. If pubs like The State Bar and The Lismore sell for those prices and no one ever quibbles it yet people complain about not getting to use a voucher in Wetherspoons due to MUP it's a massive race to the bottom and devaluing the special craftsmanship of real ale.
16/07/25	Nick Simmonds	I know it's been a while since the last comment on Wetherspoons' vouchers, but to add some perspective, I'm visiting Carmarthen and the Spoons here - Yr Hen Dderwrn - doesn't take vouchers Monday to Wednesday, so it isn't a peculiar Scottish thing. Price for a pint if the local Gower Power 5.5% = £1.79. And yes they have minimum pricing in Wales as well.

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