how about some details about what the "brew crew" is exactly, it's something i've only seen mentioned in passing in Energy Flash
TLDR; the "brew crew" were the scourge of the UK free festival / new age traveller circuit / early free party scene / squatting scenes
so here's my condensed alternative history of the UK:
Stonehenge Festival 1982 - biggest one yet, as it's time to leave site people are like "where now" - "let's support the wimmin at Greenham Common", someone paints "Peace Convoy" on their double-decker and the Peace Convoy is born - hundreds of vehicles form a convoy and head to Greenham Common for the "Cosmic Counter Cruise Carnival" ( fun rumour - reports of an acid eating competition, Nik Turner, then of Inner City Unit, the number one acid punk band, wins at 72 tabs consumed ) - Stonehenge 1983 and '84 are even bigger - over a 150,000 people, it's getting out of control, the Tories really don't like it..
so, the convoy has to go..
the police ( tooled up, thirsty for blood, and trained in action by the miner's strike ) battered the Peace Convoy at Nostell Priory in 1984 and then again at the "battle of the bean field" in Wiltshire ( 1985 ) and then yet again at Stoney Cross (1986 ) there was a marked reduction in the older travellers - when your home is your vehicle and the police have trashed it over and over, then some people just had enough, some fled to Europe, some bought their comfy homes, set up a tipi in Tipi Valley, etc., - but around the same time there was a change in the squatting laws making it harder to occupy residential premises which lead to younger people leaving the cities and buying a vehicle and going "on the road" and living on site, becoming "New Age Travellers" - notice I'm not calling anyone hippies here, because they were always in the minority and most got scared off by the police and state sanctioned violence - the Peace Convoy were hard as fuck on the whole - there was a huge crossover with the anarcho punk scene in the early 80s, loads of punks, ex-bikers, ex-squaddies, and general reprobates went on the road - but.. by 1986 the Peace Convoy has been trashed multiple times and you've got a pissed off and harassed bunch of travellers and the older heads who had always insisted on no class As on site had got scared off the scene, some survivors have turned to "self-medication", and there is an influx of urban youth from the dying squatting scene, some attracted by the Tory government's branding of the Peace Convoy / New Age Travellers as "wandering medieval brigands" - violence can be attractive and there's a guaranteed ruck every year at Stonehenge at Solstice - it's around this time that the "Brew Crew" appear, so-called because of their habit of drinking copious amounts of Special Brew - they didn't care for any of the older generation's ideals ( 'hippy shit' ) and would just use violence to take what they wanted - having smack habits didn't help either so they would just steal from vehicles and destroyed any sense of trust on site - free festivals in the late 80s could be dark and dangerous places ( I'm not saying they weren't before 1986, they were, just that the danger element increased dramatically ) - there were some nasty incidents - 1988 festival at Ribblehead viaduct saw an old timer get their vehicle burnt out by the Brew Crew ( the story I heard was that he was a housing association type who had got some people evicted for dealing smack, they saw him at the festival and caved his head in ) - people getting taxed on site, punters at festivals seen as fair game, stabbings, etc., - I think
@WashYourHands has mentioned before that the Brew Crew could be guaranteed to ruin a party / festival and I will second that opinion...
or as WYH says above...