Well, another CAMRA Members’ Weekend came and went last month (April) and, although it was quite a trek to Torquay, it was well worth it! First came a relaxing three-hour train ride from Paddington: suburbia slipped away, gently giving way to green fields and a splendid variety of trees. We had treated ourselves to a room at the Grand, an historic hotel right by the railway station. Imaginings of a bygone era came to mind, when the genteel travellers disembarked and might have had a porter scuttling over the road, taking their heavy trunks to the hotel door. Its glory is now a little more faded but no complaints from us; early booking got us a good ‘room-only’ rate and we had a comfortable stay.
We arrived late Thursday afternoon and settled in before enjoying a beach and harbour walk before sunset. We tucked into a fish supper at Rockfish, followed by a couple of beers in the Hole in the Wall, Torquay’s oldest pub, which sadly was closing after Members’ Weekend. Then it was onto the modern seafront taproom TQ Beer Works where we enjoyed Devon brews, their own Torbaydos Pale Ale (4.5% ABV with Citra and Mosaic hops) and Utopian Brewing CF321 Experimental Pale Ale (4.2% ABV). We met a few CAMRA folk in here, so it was all quite jolly.
On Friday we had a lie-in and lunched at the hotel, overlooking the bay. Not a bad start before a bit of sightseeing. A stroll along the beach, through Kings Gardens and then to Torre Abbey, which offered a fascinating and eclectic mix of monastery ruins, art (including Thrupp sculptures and Burne-Jones sketchings for stained glass) and miscellaneous history, as the home of Cary family. The Abbey gardens are also worth seeing, as well as the glasshouses.
After building up a bit of a thirst, it was time to register at the Riviera Centre for Members’ Weekend. We arrived around 5pm, only to find the members’ bar already bustling! No time to do much else other than have a quick refresher and check out the Discovery Bar. CAMRA’s Alex Metcalfe and his team were running a beer tasting experiment using Devon Dew (4.3% ABV) from Summerskills. Five samples of beer were drawn from the same cask but with and without various sparklers: gravity, handpull (with no sparkler), flat nozzle sparkler, 1ml and creamer. It was fascinating to notice the differences in flavour. This, of course, is down to the individual’s palate; it’s not ‘good’ or ‘bad’ either way.
Then we had to scoot because we were booked on the tour of Bay Brewery. The brewery itself is quite small but it was good to see behind the scenes and lovely to hear director Will Freeman’s touching account of how he started the place, with family members, and what the brewery means to him. There were plenty of Bay Brewery beers to sample, plus a Cornish pasty and crisps to keep us going. Great value for £15! Once back at the members’ bar, there was still time to try a few more beers and meet a few more people.
On Saturday the official business kicked off at 9.30; well, dear reader, we weren’t there! A little later however we tuned in online to hear the local MP say a few words, all from the comfort of our room with a cuppa. The online stream was a pilot on the Saturday only and I think that’s a good way forward for the Campaign. Not everyone can take the time out to have a long weekend away and a virtual option enables more people to be involved in Members’ Weekend. Hopefully there will be more of that next year. Sadly, I had to stop listening to Ash Corbett-Collins part way through his excellent speech because we had a lunch date at the splendid No 7 Fish Bistro near the harbour in Torquay. Wonderful local fish and good wine but booking is essential.
Suitably refreshed, we then attended the Conference afternoon session in person with the plan to hear Laura Emson’s presentation. Unfortunately that had been postponed to Sunday. After the presentation of the campaigning, magazine and website awards, we headed off to our respective fringe events. My partner Ian went to the State of UK Brewing presentation by Tim Webb and I attended a session on Maximising Member Recruitment at CAMRA Festivals, hosted by CAMRA staff members Laura Coles and Val Langford. After a quick break (and a baked potato), it was time for another fringe event; this time Music and Beer Matching with Pete Brown. This was a fascinating romp through some research about the impact of music, the mood it creates and links to beer flavours. Now, by this point, the members’ bar was sadly getting a bit depleted of pale ales and so an early night seemed in order.
Sunday morning it was time to check out. We opted for brunch at Below Decks on the harbour and hopped on the ferry across to Brixham. Lovely little place; quaint harbour setting and plenty of history. We could have spent more time exploring here. We hunted out a very nice pub from the event guide, the Queens Arms, where we joined Barry, Martin and Wendy from CAMRA’s Bromley branch, who had their ingenious bright yellow ‘on tour – all welcome to join us’ sign on display. Well, it would have been rude not to!
On tap at the Queens Arms there was Moonshine Pale Ale (4.3% ABV) and St Austell’s Shark Bait, a limited edition session pale ale (3.9% ABV). We liked these beers so much that we thought we had better also try the Stonehenge Ales Danish Dynamite IPA (5% ABV) and Bowness Bay Swan Black (4.6% ABV). A lovely boozer but we had to call time on the beers because we had to get the ferry back to Torquay. We were back in time to learn that the Hole in the Wall had run out of draught beer (clearly CAMRA folks had been busy visiting over the weekend!) but we managed to console ourselves with a flight of four thirds in TQ Beer Works. This consisted of a DDH Hazy Pale from Topsham (A Tiller the Hutt), a NEIPA Verdant x Tate Modern (Rez), TQ’s West Coast Pale ale (Centennial Hypercubed) and a wonderful fruit beer from Huyghe Brewery (Delirium Red). An excellent finish before scampering back to the hotel to collect our bags en route to the station.
I’ve certainly had worse weekends and we were blessed with good weather. Before you know it, we’ll be planning where to stay for Members’ Weekend 2026! Hopefully, more folk from London will come along to MW2026 (in St Albans) and maybe spend as little time on the official Conference business as we did! Thanks to all the staff and volunteers involved who helped make it a great weekend. Cheers!
Maria Freeman