How It Works

Beer Scoring, the Good Beer Guide and Awards

You are all probably aware of our annual awards, including Pub of the Year, and the Good Beer Guide, CAMRA’s flagship publication, which lists the best real ale pubs in the UK. What you may not know is how those pubs are selected to appear in the Guide and shortlisted for the Pub of the Year. The answer is that it is largely via beer scores submitted by CAMRA members from all over the country. If you’ve ever wondered why your favourite pub isn’t in the Guide or shortlisted, this may well be because you, and others, haven’t entered scores rating the quality of beer there. By beer scoring, you can contribute to the process of selecting pubs that go in the Good Beer Guide and have a chance to win Pub of the Year. If we don’t receive enough scores from enough members then a pub cannot be considered.

So how do I score the quality of the beer?
You don’t have to be an ‘expert’ to begin scoring your beer. However, it is not about your favourite beer receiving the highest score. You may try a beer that isn’t to your normal taste but what you need to consider is the quality of that beer, how well the pub has kept it and served it and score it according to the general guide below. It is a simple system with a ten point range from 0 to 5, with half points being used, if your opinion of the beer falls between two categories.

0	No cask ale available.
1	Poor. Beer is anything from barely drinkable to drinkable with considerable resentment.
2	Average. Competently kept, drinkable pint but doesn’t inspire in any way, not worth moving to another pub but you drink the beer without really noticing.
3	Good. Good beer in good form. You may cancel plans to move to the next pub. You want to stay for another pint and may seek out the beer again.
4	Very Good. Excellent beer in excellent condition. You stay put!
5	Perfect. Probably the best you are ever likely to find. A seasoned drinker will award this score very rarely.

How do I submit my scores?
In order to submit your scores, you need to login to CAMRA’s online pub guide www.whatpub.com either on a computer or a smartphone. Here you will find a list of nearly 35,800 real ale pubs from all over the UK, which includes all pubs that serve real ale not just those in the Good Beer Guide. In order to start submitting scores you need to:

1. Login. To do this you need your membership number and your CAMRA password.
2. Search. You can then search for your pub by name or simply search for nearby pubs if you have location activated on your phone. If searching by name alone be careful, as there are many pubs in the country which share the same name. My advice is to search by the pub name and the town or if sat in the pub use the nearby pubs option.
3. Score. Once you have found your pub a ‘Submit Beer Scores’ box will appear on the right-hand side of the screen (or on the bar underneath the pub photo if you are using a smart phone).
4. Submit. Simply fill in the date and your score then as you begin typing, the brewery name should automatically appear underneath where you are typing. You do not have to enter the name of the beer you are drinking but if you wish to do so once you have entered the brewery name you should be able to click on the arrow in the Beer box and a drop-down list of that brewery’s beers should appear. In some cases, the beer you are drinking may be new or a one-off by the brewery so may not appear on the list. If this is the case, you can simply type in the beer name. Select the correct one click ‘submit score’ and your score will be entered into the database.

It is as simple and quick as that. A bonus is that the site keeps a record of your scores so you can look back to see what beers you have had and how you rated them if you wish (this facility is only available on the desktop version). 

Anything else?
The only other main criteria we have within the branch for Good Beer Guide selection and Pub of the Year shortlist is that a pub must have been open and trading under the same pub manager or owner for the 6 months prior to the selection meeting. This will normally mean a manager/owner must have been in place by the end of June and the pub continuously trading from then for the year prior to the selection meeting in January. For example; if the selection meeting is taking place in January 2024, scores submitted by members from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023 will be used and a manager/owner must have been in place by 30 June and the pub continuously trading from then. 

For the Good Beer Guide, pubs are selected at the meeting in January. For the Pub of the Year a shortlist is decided at the selection meeting and members are then invited to score each shortlisted pub against a set of criteria decided nationally. All correctly completed and submitted scoring forms are then taken to a committee meeting and counted to decide the branch Pub of the Year.