The latest issue of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide is officially published today and, for the seventh year running, we’re in it. So congratulations to our team of volunteer cellar men for their continued sterling efforts that enable us to consistently serve some of the best real ale around and so warrant inclusion in this important publication.
If you don’t know about the Good Beer Guide, a new edition is published every year about this time and includes entries for pubs across the UK. This year, it features a foreword by Bruce Dickinson, developer of new beer recipes in collaboration with Robinson’s Brewery in Stockport. Bruce is also a qualified airline pilot and lead singer of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden which probably explains the GBG front cover artwork this year. If you scan the picture below of recent years’ GBGs you’ll see that this is a bit of a departure.
Inclusion in the guide is determined by votes from CAMRA members and is dependent on merit. To quote from the current edition’s introduction on page 4, “No pubs or breweries paid to be in this book”. The guide currently contains entries for around 4,500 pubs of which 71 are in Suffolk. This is the same total for Suffolk as last year but 14 pubs have dropped out and 14 new ones replaced them. That’s a 20% churn.
If you would like to order your own copy of the Good Beer Guide, visit shop1.camra.org.uk