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Food

14th Sep 2017

Here are the only five pubs that always appear in the Good Beer Guide

Paul Moore

Had a pint in any of these places?

Given the fact that pubs and restaurants are a massive part of the services industry in the UK, it’s only fitting that the locations that serve the best beer are rightfully acknowledged.

Every year, the CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) publishes its Good Beer Guide and the 45th edition has just been released. Congratulations to all of the locations that made it onto the esteemed guide, but we’re specifically raising our glasses to five pubs because they’ve achieved a very unique accolade.

Since the very first edition of the Good Beer Guide was published in 1972, only five watering holes have featured in every single edition.

Dubbed the ‘famous five’, the list of long-running favourite pubs are; London’s Star Tavern (6 Belgrave Mews West, Belgravia) and Buckingham Arms (62 Petty France, Westminster), the Square & Compass in Dorset (Worth Matravers, Swanage), the Queen’s Head in Cambridge (45 Quincy St) and Liverpool pub The Roscoe Head (24 Roscoe St).

According to CAMRA, each of these five pubs have frequently demonstrated  “a consistent high standard of quality beers served in a fantastic setting”.

There are a number of criterion and factors that determine a pub’s ability to make the Good Beer Guide.

For example, beer quality as well as the history and architecture of a pub are considered along with the quality of food , disabled facilities and the pub’s ability to cater for special events.

The guide is based entirely on personal recommendations that are made by local CAMRA members, which are rigorously reviewed by branches and editors.

Roger Protz, editor of the Good Beer Guide, has sent his “congratulations to the famous five, who will go down in history for being hallmarks of the Good Beer Guide. It is a great honour to be listed in the Guide even just once – never mind 45 times.”

We’ll drink to that!