{"id":6212,"date":"2026-03-25T11:19:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=6212"},"modified":"2026-03-25T11:18:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T11:18:20","slug":"introduction-to-april-may-2026-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2026\/03\/25\/introduction-to-april-may-2026-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to April \/ May 2026 edition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>This is the time of year when CAMRA branches up and down the country select their entries for the next year\u2019s <em>Good Beer Guide (GBG)<\/em>.&nbsp; Quite often I see or hear comments such as \u2018why do you always choose the same pubs\u2019 or \u2018do you only choose your favourite pubs\u2019.&nbsp; I wish to assure readers that is not how it works.&nbsp; This is CAMRA operating as a consumer organisation.&nbsp; The pubs in the guide are the ones recommended by those who themselves drink cask beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pubs can only achieve a place in the guide through nomination by their CAMRA branch.&nbsp; There are no fees involved.&nbsp; All pubs are visited several over the judging period by several different CAMRA volunteers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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.&nbsp; These are also used for the <em>GBG<\/em> and therefore all pubs in consideration for listing are judged to the same standard.&nbsp; No pub has a divine right to be in the <em>GBG<\/em>.&nbsp; Each year we start afresh and a pub needs to re-establish its credentials.&nbsp; 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 \u2018churn\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A pub\u2019s beer scores play an important part in the process.&nbsp; 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 \u2018under the radar\u2019.&nbsp; I therefore urge all CAMRA members to enter their beer scores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Tony Hedger<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the time of year when CAMRA branches up and down the country select their entries for the next year\u2019s Good Beer Guide (GBG).&nbsp; Quite often I see or&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6214,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6212\/revisions\/6214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}