How we select Pub of the Year and Good Beer Guide entries..
Invariably every year, when our Pub of the Year is announced or the Good Beer Guide is released, there are enquiries as to ‘why isn’t XXX pub included? and shouts of ‘Fix!’ or allegations of nepotism. This is both unfair and disrespectful to the volunteers that give hours of their time to survey the pubs and couldn’t be further from the truth.
The selection processes involved have been documented many times on this website and in our newsletter but, in order to be as transparent as possible, the entire selection process is documented here for all to see. This process is ongoing throughout the year and is openly discussed at every branch meeting. All branch meetings are open to non-members and anyone is free to attend meetings and have their say.
Pub of the Year.
The CAMRA Pub of the Year is a National award that starts at branch level.
Any member can nominate a pub in our branch area for the Newark CAMRA Town Pub of the Year, District Pub of the Year or Cider Pub of the Year awards. Multiple nominations will have no effect on the competition – one nomination is as good as one hundred!
To nominate a pub simply send an email to poty@newarkcamra.org.uk with your nomination and membership number. Nominations close at the end of September.
The nominees are then individually surveyed over the next three months, to a set of nationally defined criteria (such as customer service, décor, community spirit, value for money, and of course the quality of real ale), by a number of volunteers separately and on two different occasions. So, for example, if there are nine surveyors, the pub will be visited and scored on no less than eighteen different occasions. If a surveyor fails to visit all of the pubs twice for any reason, that surveyor’s results form any of the pubs do not count.
The results are collated into a table and the pubs ranked 1 to n. These ranking scores are totalled and the pub with the highest score in the Newark urban area is declared Town Pub of the Year and the highest score for the pubs outside of Newark being awarded District pub of the Year.
If two or more pubs are tied on the same whole number score then the assessors and branch officers at the meeting shall determine the POTY based on the beer scores.
Each of the 200 CAMRA branches can enter a POTY into the National competition. The branch winners are entered into 16 regional competitions and then the 16 winners battle it out to reach these final stages. Four finalists go head-to-head in a National final.
If you would like to get involved and become a surveyor for POTY please email us at the address above.
Good Beer Guide.
There are around eighty pubs in our branch area, and the branch allocation for the Good Beer Guide is only seven.
The POTY judging criteria is heavily weighted on the quality of the beer. As such the top seven scores are put forward as GBG nominations provided they meet the criteria for GBG entry.
The seven pubs are then surveyed and the Pubzilla database updated. This is then submitted to the area organizer (Nottinghamshire) for checking prior to submission to the Regional Director before going through to the editorial team at HQ.
The process then starts all over again for the next year’s guide.