Pubs highlighted in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide
PUBS across Berkshire have shown “great resilience” despite the challenges and lockdowns in the corona virus pandemic.
The CAMRA Good Beer Guide says that while seven new watering holes have opened, the same number have closed.
In total, the Central Southern region, which includes Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, records a total of 177 pubs, with 26 newly listed, plus 64 breweries. CAMRA have published the 49th edition of the best-selling The
Good Beer Guide, with contributors encouraging readers to support their local pubs and breweries in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.
While last year’s edition of the Guide captured data precovid, the 2022 edition shows the ramifications of 18 months of lockdown on the industry. CAMRA has been calling on the Government to go further with its support package for pubs and breweries, and to help mitigate the damage done to a sector in recovery, still scarred by extended closures.
Nationally, the 2022 Guide found that the total number of independent UK breweries has risen to 1,902 in 2021 from 1,816 in 2020* — the highest number of breweries recorded in the Guide since publication began in 1974, and a national increase after recording the first decline in brewery numbers since 2008 in the previous edition. However, while 138 breweries have opened this year and are newly listed in the Guide, 75 have closed.
The Guide surveys 4,500 pubs across the UK, and is considered the definitive beer drinker’s guide to the best pints in the most picturesque and friendly pubs. Despite being hampered by lockdowns and restrictions in the early part of this year, thousands of independent volunteers have worked to compile this year’s entries, helping to identify significant trends and themes locally and nationally.
CAMRA National Chairman Nik Antona said: “After the struggles of the past 18 months for the industry, it is great that The Good Beer Guide figures are showing the resilience of pubs and brewers in the face of strife – a national increase in brewery numbers after they dipped last year for the first time, as well as over 500 new pub entries.”
The foreword for this year’s edition of The Good Beer Guide was written by best-selling singer and owner of the Fox & Pheasant pub in Chelsea James Blunt, who has thrown his support behind the Great British pub and reflected on the industry’s struggles during the coronavirus pandemic.