This is the time of year when CAMRA branches up and down the country select their entries for the next year’s Good Beer Guide (GBG). Quite often I see or hear comments such as ‘why do you always choose the same pubs’ or ‘do you only choose your favourite pubs’. I wish to assure readers that is not how it works. This is CAMRA operating as a consumer organisation. The pubs in the guide are the ones recommended by those who themselves drink cask beer.
Pubs can only achieve a place in the guide through nomination by their CAMRA branch. There are no fees involved. All pubs are visited several over the judging period by several different CAMRA volunteers.
Although CAMRA branches are autonomous when it comes to selecting their pubs, CAMRA has a set of standard judging criteria that are used at all stages of its competitions, from Branch Pub of the Year to the national winner. These are also used for the GBG and therefore all pubs in consideration for listing are judged to the same standard. No pub has a divine right to be in the GBG. Each year we start afresh and a pub needs to re-establish its credentials. That said, while it is always encouraging to see new pubs coming through, it is not fair to exclude a pub that is succeeding in maintaining its standards, especially in these difficult times, just for the sake of ‘churn’.
A pub’s beer scores play an important part in the process. While they do not determine the final decision, they can help, in particular, to draw attention to up-and-coming pubs that might otherwise slip ‘under the radar’. I therefore urge all CAMRA members to enter their beer scores.
Tony Hedger