DURHAM cask beer fans have launched a campaign to promote wider sale of their favourite tipple.

The local branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) is backing a national campaign, Ask if it's Cask, to urge beer drinkers to ensure that landlords, pub managers and big breweries know there is a demand for the product.

Real ale has grown in popularity, and several micro-breweries and real ale pubs have been established in the county.

But Camra is concerned that national brewers and pub chains are more interested in smooth flow beers, and pubs and theme bars selling lagers and bottled drinks aimed at younger customers.

The Durham branch launch-ed its campaign at the Grey Horse, Consett, the branch's pub of the year in 2000, where landlord Paul Conroy has his own Derwentrose Brewery.

Durham branch chairman Ken Weaver said the campaign was not directed against lager or bars that catered for alco-pop or bottled beer drinkers.

He said: "We are trying to promote a better choice of cask ale in pubs.

"There are some places, like Crook and Chester-le-Street, where it is a real ale desert apart from a couple of pubs.

"We are saying that we would like to see at least a cask ale alongside all the other types of beer and other drinks.''

He said the campaign was "about persuading people who prefer cask beer to demand it in their local pub and not be refused or fobbed off with something they regard as second best.''