© South Bedfordshire CAMRA 2010
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CAMRA’s biggest annual national publication is the Good Beer Guide which features the best 4500 real ale outlets in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. These outlets are usually pubs, but the guide also includes a selection of clubs and off licences. The Breweries Section lists all the producers and their beers, including tasting notes, information on beers suitable for vegetarians and the growing number of organic and bottle-conditioned beers.
South Bedfordshire
The entries in the Good Beer Guide are arranged into counties and are
submitted by CAMRA branches. For an area map showing exactly which places South Bedfordshire covers see the AREA MAP.
Selection Process
The primary, overriding requirement for being in the Guide is simply to serve consistently well-kept beer. A pub doesn’t have to have twelve hand pumps or have an enormous throughput of guest beers [although these points may help to tip the balance when it comes to down selecting the final entries].
It’s no good however having the best kept beer around if we don’t know about it. As a branch we attempt to visit as many pubs in our area as we can throughout the year on our regular Thursday socials but there is no way we can go to them all. We therefore also rely on receiving nominations of potentially good pubs from our membership at any time of the year. The more nominations we get then the more likely we are to include a pub in the Guide.
We start to actively encourage people to send in nominations from October and when we have a fair list we will publish this and encourage members to visit as many of these as possible and send us feedback on the beer quality. At our January branch meeting we select the required number of pubs based on numbers of nominations received. No one can vote for a pub they haven’t been to over the last year and ideally they should have been more than once. We add a number of reserves to the list as pubs close and landlords change at an alarming rate these days.
Members are nominated to survey each of the selected pubs and reserves by filling in a standard form containing all of the fields required for each Guide entry. These are then entered onto an online database system for checking first by the Area Organiser and then by the Regional Director (this used to be done by filling out paper forms). These can then be worked on by the Guide editing team.
A few months later the proofs are available to the Area Organiser for review. Up to this point amendments can be made including removing pubs which have fallen below standard or closed or changed management. This last point can be contentious because it takes quite some time to decide if the new management will serve consistently good beer. This leaves us open to the possibility that a pub actually improves after we’ve removed it from the next Good Beer Guide – but frankly we’d rather do this than leave pub in which turns out to fall below the standard – this would devalue the Guide.
The Guide is released at the beginning of September.
The important point is – if you disagree with Guide entries then get involved. You don’t have to come to the meetings, you can just contact us by email or phone – but remember – it’s a democratic process.
After the guide has been published there can be changes in the entries, often resulting in a fall in the quality of the beer available.
Facts : -
Bedfordshire gets 50 entries in the Guide.
South Bedfordshire branch gets 22 entries – this can vary a bit depending on the other county branches
Time-line, working backwards: –
- September - The Guide is released
- May - The proofs are available to the Area Organiser for review / comment
- March - The details must be entered into the online system for approval by the Regional Director
- February – Surveys conducted and sent to the Area Organiser
- January – Pubs selected, including reserves
- November / December – Membership invited to visit nominated pubs to provide feedback
- October – Nominations invited from membership