Tom Burnett

On why the Good Beer Guide is just tip of iceberg when it comes to great Leek pubs

AS I write this there is only one subject dominating the news agenda. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t write about it.

I, of course, mean the release of the Campaign for Real Ale’s Good Beer Guide 2021.

This hefty tome, published since 1972, lists pubs and breweries across the UK that are considered `the cream of the crop of their region’.

Leek is, of course, wellrepresented. Four of our town’s great pubs – the Roebuck, the Blue Mugge, the Wilkes Head and Fountain Inn – make the cut.

Down the road the Black Lion in Cheddleton and the other Black Lion, in Consall Forge also appear – as do the Yew Tree Inn in Cauldon and the Talbot in Alton, along with other pubs in the district.

The Good Beer Guide is seen by some as the definitive guide to the pubs you must visit in any town. However, I prefer to view it as a sampler of some of the selected highlights of any given area.

It’s like buying a guidebook to a city. Yes, it will include the favourite places of the people who compiled it (in this case almost 190,000 CAMRA members), but there is always more to do and see.

While getting an entry in the guide is an accolade many pubs are proud of, it is far from the only sign of a decent bar (and there’s also only a certain amount of space for each area).

In Leek there are plenty of pubs beyond those listed above that are well worthy of acknowledgement.

This is a town where there is something to cater for most tastes.

At the moment I have been going to the Roebuck a lot as I enjoy the atmosphere and the excellent Titanic beer. However, I am also a fan of smaller bars that have sprung up in recent years – Brewce’s on Stanley Street, and Beyond the Pale and Sparrow Park on the Smithfield Centre are more of my favourite haunts in the town at the moment.

If you want a more traditional pub, I don’t think you can go wrong with Derby Street’s Cock Inn or the Cobblers down on Russell Street – which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary.

I’ve only gone into the Silk Mill on Market Street a handful of times since it opened earlier this year, but it’s worth a visit.

It’s important to remember the determined and resilient boozers outside the town centre too.

Earlier this year – when coronavirus was something that got five paragraphs at the end of the World News section in broadsheet newspapers – I finally ticked the last few pubs on my list of bars in Leek during a pub crawl around Haregate.

Community pubs are just that – a key part of their communities. The only one I’ve visited since pubs reopened in July has admittedly been the Wellington Inn – but I will definitely go again.

Regarding Moorlands breweries, one omission that I feel is definitely worth a mention here is the Cheddleton-based Staffordshire Brewery. I’d particularly recommend the Rudyard Ruby and the Black Grouse Stout.

As with the Good Beer Guide itself, these are just samples. There are plenty more pubs and beers to explore.

The best way to do that – restrictions permitting – is to get out and see for yourself.