The Good Pub Guide 2015 – the bible for pub-goers – is out in its 33rd edition, identifying both the ‘Pub Superheroes’ who have paid key roles in transforming ‘decrepit boozers’ into a thriving industry – see if you agree with their choices – as well as a whole range of ‘Pubs of the Year’, headed by The Rose and Crown, of Snettisham, Norfolk.
It’s the UK’s No 1 bestselling guide and as invaluable as ever. With regular feedback from over 2,000 loyal and eagle-eyed correspondents who look for real warmth and quality of service, it is the pub-goers’ recommendations, backed up by editor inspections, that determine who’s in and who’s out year on year.
The pub scene is finally booming
Alisdair Aird and Fiona Stapley, the editors of the guide, believe that after years of doom and gloom, the pub scene is finally booming. They comment: ‘The pub scene has changed utterly from the days of decrepit boozers with dull beer and freezer-pack food to a thriving industry that’s now finding ingenious ways of pleasing millions of new customers. And this transformation has taken place against a background of hard economic times that have driven many less alert pub businesses to the wall. Although around 28 pubs are closing a week (about half the number that closed a couple of years ago), many of them are being re-opened by visionary and energetic new licensees. It is the success of these pubs that has definitely led to a new mood of forward-looking confidence in the pub world.’
The Pub Superheroes
In their Introduction, Alisdair Aird and Fiona Stapley point to 7 men who they describe as the ‘Pub Superheroes’. Each of them is at the forefront of key development that has proved crucial to the transformation:
- Bill Sharp: The quality foundations that Cornish brewer, Bill Sharp, laid down in producing Sharps Doom Bar, have inspired a new generation of craft brewers.
- Rooney Anand: CEO of Greene King who has shown how a national brewer with 1,600 pubs can flourish. He has focussed sharply on what customers want and under his guidance, good value food has become a central part of the mix. Providing proper jobs for over 20,000 people, he’s proved that sound management pays off.
- Jocelyn Ridley: is champion of the traditional pub – he’s bought one of his family’s former pubs, the Compasses at Littley Green in Essex and runs it as the very archetype of an unspoilt country tavern – proving that a cheerful, simple country inn can win plenty of happy customers without a fancy menu or fashionable trappings.
- Tim Martin: when The Good Pub Guide started in 1983 Tim Martin, the founder and boss of the Wetherspoons group, then still in his twenties, had just 4 pubs but had already found a formula that had driven his success – good motivated staff, cheap beer, remarkable value food, plenty of space and character, and usually no piped music. Today the chain has nearly 1,000 pubs.
- Andres Alemany: The pubs that don’t just survive but really thrive, are those that keep evolving, anticipating what customers will want. More and more, this means nibbles, tapas-like small dishes and ‘sharing boards’. Andres Alemany of the Purefoy Arms at Preston Candover in Hampshire is a past master at this art of creating mouth-watering little dishes.
- Jeremy Brunning & Graham Price: Owners of the Brunning & Price group, Jerry Brunning and Graham Price are pub visionaries, never satisfied with less than all-round excellence. In the 1980s they took a dim view of prevailing pub standards and set out to create places with real comfort, inviting décor, appetising and interesting food, good but not expensive wine and a better range of beers and other drinks offered by the competition. They now have over 40 thriving pubs.
National survey of drink prices
The Guide’s survey of beer prices shows a whopping 76p-a-pint difference between Herefordshire the cheapest county, and London, the most expensive (up from 65p last year). The average price of a pint of beer in Britain is now £3.31 (up from £3.20 last year). Another finding of this year’s survey is that Britain’s ever- growing range of pubs brewing their own beer typically costs 45p a pint less than the local average.
Women and pubs
It wasn’t so long ago that women rarely went to pubs and, if they did, they were accompanying their husbands. All the things women hated were there. Dirty tables, floors and loos; full of cigarette smoke; substandard food and wine; uninspiring and dreary décor; and sad unloved gardens. At the beginning of the 1990s, the first Gastro pub appeared and slowly, food in pubs changed forever. And licensees also began to realise that by not appealing to women, they were missing out on a huge market. Today, with the smoking ban, much improved and appealing décor, top class food, and the growing trend for early morning coffee with pastries and afternoon tea, pubs are attracting women like never before.
Value pubs
The guide notes that despite the recessionary times and all that goes with it (for example, increased raw food costs), many pubs have managed to keep very fair prices. In the new edition, 106 pubs hold a Bargain Meals Award which means they offer interesting cooking that gives real value, typically for under £10. That’s 1 in 8 main entries. In 2010 it was 1 in 11. So a ‘quick bite at the local’ can still offer great value.
The Good Pub Guide 2015 is published by Ebury Press at £15.99. The Good Pub Guide app for iPhone and iPad is the bestselling pub guide in the App Store and consistently in the Food & Drink Top 20.
NATIONAL AWARD WINNERS 2015
Pub of the Year: Rose and Crown, Snettisham, Norfolk
Licensee: Anthony & Jeanette Goodrich : (01485) 541382
Dining Pub of the Year: Pipe and Glass, South Dalton, Yorkshire
Licensees: Kate and James Mackenzie : (01430) 810246
New Pub of the Year: Church Inn, Mobberley, Cheshire
Licensee: Simon Umpleby : (01565) 873178
Own Brew Pub of the Year: Church Inn, Uppermill, Lancashire
Licensee: Christine Taylor : (01457) 820902
Beer Pub of the Year: Nags Head, Malvern, Worcestershire
Licensees: Clare Keane & Alex Whistance : 01684 574373
Whisky Pub of the Year: Sligachan Hotel, Sligachan, Isle of Skye
Licensee: Sandy Coghill : (01478) 650204
Wine Pub of the Year: Woods, Dulverton, Somerset
Licensee: Patrick Groves : (01398) 324007
Unspoilt Pub of the Year: Square & Compass, Worth Matravers, Dorset
Licensees: Charlie Newman & Kevin Hunt : (01929) 439229
Town Pub of the Year: Old Harkers Arms, Chester, Cheshire
Licensee: Paul Jeffery : (01244) 344525
Country Pub of the Year: English Partridge, Bighton, Hampshire
Licensee: Rupert Reeves : (01962) 732859
Inn of the Year: New Inn, Cerne Abbas, Dorset
Licensee: Jeremy Lee : (01300) 341274
Value Pub of the Year: Ring O’ Bells, Lathom, Lancashire
Licensee: Rebecca Grace : (01704) 893157
Licensees of the Year: The Mainey Family, CROWN, Roecliffe, Yorkshire
(01423) 322300
Brewery of the Year: Woodfordes Ltd, Norwich
(01603) 720353
Pub Group of the Year: Provenance Inns, Durham Ox, Crayke, York
Contacts: Chris Blundell & Michael Ibbotson