South Wales pub of the year process

Now that the Queens hotel has been awarded its Swansea pub of the year certificate, I thought I would give an update on what happens from here.

I will say Gary, the landlord, was absolutely delighted when he first heard the news. He asked and I explained some of the process to which he replied “Gosh, it is far more thorough that I thought”.

The Queens will go forward into the annual Wales pub of the year competition. This is kicked off in our area by the South Wales regional competition. Members from Swansea branch (and other branches) in the coming weeks will visit all of these pubs and rate them comparatively based on six categories as follows; quality of the drinks, style/décor, sympathy with CAMRA, good value, community focus and service/welcome.

Five to seven members of Swansea branch will endeavor to get to all pubs before the second weekend of June so that the scores maybe entered in time. However anyone can score these pubs if they happen to be in the area. Note that the scoring process is specific and if you wish to enter a score, please get the appropriate form and instructions off me first.  Scores are tallied at the end in a comparative manner so as to get the winner. The winner of this region then competes with the two other Welsh regions for the overall Wales POTY. This then joins the 14 regional winners in CAMRA’s national pub of the year competition.

The finalists for the South Wales region are as follows:

• Brecknockshire: New Inn, Bwlch (GBG17, page 593)
• Cardiff: Hopbunker, Cardiff (GBG17, page 577)
• Gwent: Queen’s Head, Chepstow (GBG17, page 588)
• Mid Glamorgan: Pencelli Hotel, Treorchy (GBG17, page 585)
• Neath – Port Talbot: Pontardawe Inn, Pontardawe (GBG17, page 583)
• Radnorshire: Arvon Ale House, Llandrindod Wells (GBG17, page 595)
• Swansea: Queen’s Hotel, Swansea (GBG17, page 584)
• Vale of Glamorgan & Bridgend: Golden Lion, Penarth (GBG17, page 582)

Swansea Good Beer Guide and pub of the year 2018

On our own patch, the entries for the next GBG guide have been submitted and the proofs have arrived. From June to mid-July, amendments to times and even changing of entries (e.g. pub closes so reserve gets promoted) can be made. In early August the GBG goes to print.

Further scores using whatpub and the nbss system are used to help select our GBG entries based on beer quality. Approximately 30 people have entered 272 scores on the database to date, scoring 57 different pubs in just over 230 visits. 15 different branches have contributed scores though Swansea and Neath Port Talbot members contributed approximately 74% of all the scores. By and large scores from external branches are consistent with our own. If we keep this level of scoring up, then our database of scores will grow again.

More information can be found on beer scoring in the link. If you have not tried it, give it a go. Alternatively pubs can be nominated for consideration throughout the year or at the selection meeting as long as the reasoning is based no good beer quality.

Finally from this months whats brewing, prizes can be won by beer scoring.

Congratulations to the WhatPub and National Beer Scoring System quarterly prize draw winners, who have each won a copy of Britain’s Beer Revolution by Roger Protz and Adrian Tierney-Jones… If you would like to get involved, go to whatpub.com/beerscoring for the National Beer Scoring System or go to whatpub.com to update a pub listing.