Good Beer Guide
The Good Beer Guide (also known as the GBG) is the UK’s most popular beer and pub guide. It features 4,500 pubs, bars, and clubs which have been carefully selected by CAMRA members from all over the UK. Every year, the entries are reviewed and updated to ensure that only the pubs selling consistently good real ale are included.
This guide is an excellent resource for anyone interested in searching out a good pint of real ale, as well as a welcoming and well run pub. Each entry in the guide contains a brief description, along with details of regular beers. The brewery section can be used to discover local beers, as well as some well known and liked national beers.
How Do Pubs Get in the Guide?
Each branch of CAMRA is allotted a certain number of entries for the guide that they need to fill with the best pubs in their area, as selected by the branch members. The Shrewsbury and West Shropshire branch currently has an allocation for 26 pubs in the Good Beer Guide.
At the end of each year, we produce a shortlist of pubs with an average beer quality score of around 3.5 or over. For more details about how beer scores are derived, please see our Beer Scoring page.
This shortlist is then whittled down to the final 26 by discussion, application of further criteria, and a final assessment visit to each pub.
A more detailed description of the selection criteria that the branch uses for selecting pubs for the Good Beer Guide can be seen in the following document. (Please note that this document is currently being reviewed and may be updated following the review)
Branch GBG Statistics
For those that like a few statistics, below is a list of pubs in the Shrewsbury and West Shropshire CAMRA branch area that have appeared in the Good Beer Guide fifteen times or more. The list is sorted by number of appearances, town name and pub name.
The following table is a list of pubs in the Shrewsbury and West Shropshire CAMRA branch area that have appeared in the Good Pub Guide in the past but are now no longer pubs. The list is sorted by town name and pub name.
| Lost Pubs | Appearances in GBG | Last Appearance |
|---|---|---|
| Barley Mow (Aston Rogers) | 4 | 1978 |
| Fox (Bayston Hill) | 5 | 1980 |
| Welsh Harp (Bicton Heath) | 3 | 1983 |
| Black Lion (Bishops Castle) | 1 | 1974 |
| Old Mill Inn (Candy) | 2 | 2000 |
| Fox (Cross Houses) | 2 | 1986 |
| Fox (Dudlestone) | 3 | 1983 |
| Railway (Ellesmere) | 3 | 1981 |
| Swan (Frodesley) | 1 | 2001 |
| Royal Oak (Hookagate) | 3 | 1986 |
| Blacksmith’s Arms (Loppington) | 14 | 1992 |
| Horse & Jockey (Ludlow) | 3 | 1978 |
| Keysell’s Counting House (Ludlow) | 5 | 1978 |
| Nags Head (Ludlow) | 1 | 1974 |
| Portcullis (Ludlow) | 1 | 1979 |
| Nesscliffe Hotel (Nesscliffe) | 2 | 1991 |
| Romping Cat (Oldwoods) | 20 | 2010 |
| Black Gate (Oswestry) | 4 | 2002 |
| Five Bells (Oswestry) | 2 | 1984 |
| Sun (Oswestry) | 4 | 1994 |
| Welch Harp (Oswestry) | 1 | 1987 |
| Railway (Pontesbury) | 3 | 1981 |
| Red Lion (Pontesbury) | 6 | 1981 |
| Bridge (Ruyton XI Towns) | 7 | 1983 |
| Old Bush (Shrewsbury) | 3 | 1977 |
| Plough (Shrewsbury) | 3 | 1977 |
| Springfield (Shrewsbury) | 1 | 1976 |
| Unicorn (Shrewsbury) | 6 | 1980 |
| Gibraltar (Treflach) | 8 | 1990 |
| Efel (Trefonen) | 5 | 1992 |
| Horse & Jockey (Wem) | 1 | 1992 |
| White Horse (Wem) | 4 | 1979 |
| Fox (West Felton) | 3 | 1986 |
| Plume of Feathers (Whitchurch) | 1 | 1987 |
| Penrhos Arms (Whittington) | 3 | 1987 |
| Squirrel (Woolerton) | 5 | 1982 |
A Bit of History
The first printed edition of the Good Beer Guide that came out in 1974 contained quite a few pubs from our branch area, as can be seen below. Nice to see that some of these pubs are still appearing in the latest guides.
