In late 1974, Jamie Roper placed an advertisement in the Campaign For Real Ale magazine 'What's Brewing' asking it anyone in Stoke on Trent and district was interested in forming a local branch of the movement

Jamie was aware that there were other branches locally and that the Campaign was beginning to take off in a big way There were many like-minded people who were tired of the brewers insisting that they knew best, and the closure of the Joule's Stone brewery by the biggest of them all, Bass, was a catalyst in the formation of the resistance movement

A meeting was held at the Sneyd Arms on the Higherland, Newcastle, where a small group of people turned up and showed enough interest for the fledgling branch to hold pub-crawls and to place further advertisements. Subsequently, the 'branch' held meetings with representatives of the Stafford & Stone and the Macclesfield branches to carve out a geographical 'Potteries Branch' area.

The new branch was then responsible for choosing and surveying pubs for the "Good Beer Guide" (GBG), and started to arrange excursions and brewery visits, including Bass in Burton and Robinson's in Stockport.

The branch progressed to staging beer festivals, initially just a beer tent at the Ilam Folk, Rural Crafts and Beer Festival, where Jamie slept in the tent for security! Another beer tent was attended at the Barthomley Festival, where, it is alleged, someone fell into the latrine trench! The Sealed Knot attacked Barthomley church and set fire to a hay stack when they fired a ball of string out of a cannon!

25 years on, and the Potteries Branch is still holding annual beer festivals, campaigning for Real Ale, and still going strong!