It’s your favourite day* of the year !
The new Good Beer Guide is “officially” launched today, back in its rightful late September launch date for the first time since Covid.
Note that the Iron Maiden version has less entries (any pubs with prog rock on their jukebox have been excluded ) than the “plain” version, so easier to tick.
A big, big, thanks to all the CAMRA members and staff who produce the Guide. Despite criticisms, often from people who don’t visit pubs much, I reckon the GBG gets it right the vast majority of the time.
The debate around the inclusion of opening times data in the book will rumble on, though actual opening times are likely to be of more concern to some.
Baa Baa and Alfie are excited about the prospects for a new season of GBG based travel, without the pressure to actually complete the book. It’s like being Manchester City with the pressure off, but I’m not sure what the pub based equivalent of Kalvin Phillips is.
The last 10 days have seen me furiously but methodically cross-checking the new book’s entries against my master list of visited pubs,
cursing that “Ship” is now “Ye Olde Ship” or Dalry has lost its “St John’s town of“, making checking so much more fun.
And at the end of each chapter I colour in the pubs I’ve done, leave the ones I haven’t (498**),
and produce a long list of the ones I need to visit, shortly to be annotated with possible opening times.
And then have agonies about whether I’ve actually done that Dunfermline Spoons before, in 1998, pre-emptively. Regression therapy for pub tickers would solve all these problems of duff note-taking.
Talking of Wetherspoons,
There are LOADS of Spoons in GBG24, more than I can ever remember, including a few I visited years ago that I thought would never make it (Hello, St Neots).
But that’s OK, JDW beer quality is often good enough, despite the “long pull”. And a reminder that whatever your views on the management or the furnishings, the Beer Guide is about beer.
That pint of London Pride, drinking well in a dull Greater Grantham new entry yesterday, was not only one of the best in Lincolnshire, it was one of the best pints of Fullers ever.
The Good Beer Guide remains the pinnacle of CAMRA’s campaigning, though as this intelligent chap on Discourse notes there is ONE possible improvement.
Now, let’s see what BRAPA and the Pubmeister have to say…
*Apart from 22 December, obviously
** Fear not, spreadsheet to follow fellow anoraks
retiredmartin 
I can’t believe you haven’t been to Ryrie’s outside Haymarket station. Cracking good pub.
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Yes, Ryrie’s is a stonking pub. It’s also where the Bay City Rollers were formed.
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But “stonking” is not paramount to the ticker, which is one reason why Martin’s blog can be so very entertaining 😀
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I reckon there’s a few I’ve done but not marked as done as they weren’t in the GBG then, or because they’ve changed name or location in the Guide.
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End of an era. For first time across four decades didn’t order one. What Pub has its issues, not least the wide variation in local branches keeping their sections up to date – some being very good at it and others er, somewhat less so. However, much as love printed books, noticed the last several editions just sat on the shelf almost completely unopened throughout the year. Thus the 50th edition seemed a good punctuation mark to end the collection. Have felt a twinge of regret though as pubs excitedly take to social media to confirm they still in it or have made it for the first time; and people announce its arrival through their letter boxes.
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Your blog tells me a lot more about the GBG pubs than the guide itself.
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I’ve been buying the Good Beer Guide since 1974. Last year’s edition was definitely the worst so far, with the fatuous new layout which makes it a lot more difficult to find what you’re looking for. I wonder which bright spark thought there was a (non-existent) problem that needed fixing. Predictably, this year’s edition has the same layout. Anyone else like to have the old layout back?
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It was CAMRA books. They were copying the format of other annual guides such as the National Trust guide. I share your frustration.
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I also cancelled this year specifically because of the regional layout.
Another gripe I had was with the breweries within each county. for example on the Surrey map there are breweries marked at, for example, Dorking, but then look at the index and they are actually listed under any name other than Dorking eg Surrey Hills and Trailhead. Similarly with Capel – find under Dorking!! and Coldharbour – find under Leigh Hill etc etc
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I wished they’d scrap the breweries section all together !
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Having bought the Guide continuously since 1974, I gave u pin 2013, after 40 editions. As others have said, my copies were just gathering dust on the shelf, so the 40th edition seemed a suitable high note to bow out on.
Seeing as I haven’t looked inside the GBG for 10 years, I haven’t got a clue as to what this change of layout debate is all about. I don’t actually need to know either, although I am just a little bit curious.
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If you’d bought yourself a Stabilo Boss marker, possibly a mauve one, you too could have had a lifetime of colouring enjoyment.
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I’m not convinced! 😁
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“JDW beer quality is often good enough, despite the “long pull”.”
You’ve taught me that there are two definitions of that, the original one never being seen in Tim’s venues.
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Great stuff. Assume the missing spreadsheet got held up somewhere between Calais and Dover. 498 is a pretty low figure considering you didn’t go at it as hard last year, reflective of a relatively low churn this time round. See you in Tyne Amateur Rowing Club soon?
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Will get that spreadsheet out soon, Sir, along with excuses for not doing 100%. Ended GBG23 at about 190, having hardly entered Wales, Scotland or the South West at all last year. As you’ve noted, quite a few oldies came back in, as well as a decent number of Spoons we’d all been in pre-emptively.
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With WhatPub online and the GBG app to download, the continuing publication of it in printed form is really a commercial rather than a campaigning issue for CAMRA. I haven’t bought once since 2017, for similar shelf space reasons that others have mentioned, and probably won’t again. I particularly don’t like this year’s cover. I know they’re trying to jump on the same Iron Maiden bandwagon that Robinson’s have profitted from with Trooper, but it’s as likely to repel as attract buyers I reckon (hence the alternative cover).
The brewery section is actually the one that will continue to be relevant as a historical record of the state of the industry at that point in time (it’s the one that I look things up most in the second hand copies I’ve picked up over the years).
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I agree with your first paragraph, Matthew, and some of your second. The brewery sections certainly tell us how many breweries there are, but with no information on how successful they are on getting their beers into pubs it doesn’t really give a picture of the actual state of the beer industry.
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