A bottle of Löwenbräu lager that survived the 1937 Hindenburg airship crash has just sold at auction for £11,000, proving that beer and gas have always had an explosive relationship. And the same tension exists today: a new wave of British microbrewers is producing handcrafted lager on a small scale, against dogged opposition from both the real ale lobby - owing to the brewers' use of CO 2 to dispense the beer - and the Great British Public.

'British lager' has been almost oxymoronic for the better part of a century. Anti-German sentiment during the first world war destroyed the optimistically united Anglo-Bavarian Brewery, while pale continental pilsners were expensive and unpatriotic through interwar recession and the fight against Nazism.

So almost all lager drunk in this country (today accounting for around 70% of total beer) has a foreign accent: the reassuringly expensive Belgians, heat-drenched Aussie blokes, the Stetsons, girls and stratocasters of Bud, even the late, lamented exhortation to 'follow the bear' from the Bavarian forest. When, in 2000, brewing giant Whitbread launched GB, an overtly British lager, it flopped spectacularly. Lager-louts seemingly like it big, boozy and with foreign branding: Stella Artois, the market leader, weighs in at 5.2%.

More challenging still, in September this year, the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) banned Freedom Brewery, one of the most notable lager pioneers, from exhibiting at the Summer Beer Festival in Burton-on-Trent. Freedom's use of gas to serve its beer contravenes Camra policy. Mike Knight, who set up Lagers of the British Isles (LOBI) in response to this snub, is stoic. 'We don't have a lot to do with Camra, though we'd like to,' he says. 'We find that the people we talk to there at ground level are behind what we're doing, but those at the top say: 'You're producing the L-word - and we represent the ale lobby'. I'd like them to recognise us, though, and our door is open.'

Iain Loe, national spokesman for Camra, doesn't mince his words:

"We appreciate high-quality products, and we wish good luck to these brewers. But if you want to build relationships, don't come to us and say 'We started producing beer in the last five minutes and now you have to change everything you believe in' - it's a mixture of naivety and arrogance."

But despite the challenges faced by the new British wave, customers seem delighted. Sales of Cotswold lager are up 55% on last year, and Freedom by 40%. Some lagers are truly delicious: West, Harviestoun and Mitchell Krause are making exquisite beers, some cask-aged, with nutty caramels or sweetness and light. The beer blogger Mark Dredge has praised Harviestoun's 'fruity-floral bitterness and full, smooth body'. Harviestoun is of course Scottish, and as a Scotsman myself I can vouch for its clean, citrus tones - a world away from the inimitably ghastly, ubiquitous Tennent's.

It seems obvious that customers should be given every opportunity to enjoy these distinctive and interesting beers, brewed for unique flavour and complex notes, instead of the generic, minimally offensive styles of the famous brands. But I'm keen to hear your thoughts. Are you a devoted real ale drinker, who sees the appearance of these lagers as a sad regression? Or do you prefer the clean, neutral taste of the classic lager brands? Let's get the debate fizzing.