A brewer in Manchester has invited me to join in him in launching the Campaign for Real Lager.

I have politely declined as I have enough on my plate but I know where he’s coming from.

A growing number of brewers are producing proper lager but they are frustrated by the domination of the lager market by a handful of global brands.

Most of the big brands don’t deserve to be called lager. It’s a German word meaning storage and a real lager should be stored and aged for several months to reach maturity.

The Czech Budweiser Budvar is lagered for 90 days and is the benchmark for the style.

In sharp contrast, the global brands are produced in just a few days. The American version of Budweiser is in the brewery for 21 days and that can be reduced, its owner says, "at times of high demand".

A brewer at Carlsberg told me the Danish company had "taken the lagering out of lager" and their beer can be made as quickly as ale.

He said Budvar was "wasting its time" lagering beer for 90 days. I would say “taste the difference”.

The manner in which consumers are fooled by the misleading term for lager has worsened as a result of a beer called Madri, launched in 2020.

The massive promotion by its owner, Molson Coors, a Canadian/American conglomerate based in Burton-on-Trent and Tadcaster and best known for Carling, has earned £600 million in sales to date.

The beer is called Madri Excepcional (4.6 per cent) with the tag line "El Alma de Madrid" – the soul of Madrid. The name is an affectionate term for people who live in the Spanish capital.

The label shows a man in a traditional chulapo but the beer has nothing to do with Madrid. It’s not brewed anywhere in Spain but 1,500 miles north in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire.

Madri is not alone. Of all the big lager brands on sale in Britain, only Peroni is a genuine import. Amstel, Foster’s and Moretti are all brewed in Manchester, Carlsberg and San Miguel in Northampton, Beck’s, American Budweiser and Stella Artois at Magor in South Wales and Kronenbourg at one of the plants owned by the Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company. Heineken is brewed in both Manchester and Yorkshire.

The beers may share the names of their original counterparts but they are not the same. Stella Artois is five per cent in Belgium, 4.6 per cent here.

San Miguel is 5.4 per cent in Spain, five per cent in the UK. Foster’s is four per cent in Australia and 3.7 per cent in Britain.

Kronenbourg 1664 is 5.5 per cent in France. It was five per cent here but that was reduced earlier this year to 4.6 per cent.

The global brewers have been reducing the alcoholic strengths of many of their lagers and their ales.

They claim it’s because they have the health of their customers in mind but the brewers aren’t concerned with drinkers’ health.

The reason they reduce the strength of their beers is because they save a fortune in excise duty.

Take the case of John Smith’s Smooth, a keg ale owned by Heineken UK. The strength was reduced from 3.6 to 3.4 per cent, making a saving of £53.68 in duty on each barrel brewed.

If Heineken produces 100,000 barrels of John Smith’s Smooth a year, the saving in duty will be £4 million.

It’s all about wealth, not health. Don’t be fooled by the global brewers black propaganda and stick to proper lager and ale made by independent brewers.

Look out for lagers made by Utopian, Anspach & Hobday, Meantime, St Austell, Hogs Back, Wrexham, Brixton, Shepherd Neame and – which is where I came in – Manchester Union.

Good luck with the Campaign for Real Lager.