CAMRA Southport & West Lancs awards 2020

The Southport & West Lancs branch of CAMRA will shortly be presenting its branch awards to local pubs, bars and clubs. These awards are decided by the votes of ordinary CAMRA members who have visited all the finalists. Because the branch covers two quite dissimilar areas, Southport and Formby on the one hand and West Lancs on the other, there are two sets of awards. This year the winners include a traditional pub, two micropubs, a modern pub and a cricket club. 

West Lancs
• Pub of the Year is Tap Room No 12 (formerly the Hop Inn Bier Shoppe) at 12 Burscough Steet in Ormskirk. Formerly a shop, it was converted into a single-roomed bar, and the wooden panels and genuine pub furniture successfully recreate the atmosphere of a traditional pub room. There's a choice of real ale, as you'd expect, but they can also sell you 20+ gins as well as craft and continental beers.
• Cider Pub of the Year is the Court Leet on Wheatsheaf Walk, just off Burscough Street in Ormskirk. This JD Wetherspoons pub is much more modern than the customary house style of the pub group with large windows and a bright and airy interior. The pub is on two levels with an open air balcony on the first floor overlooking the Ormskirk skyline.

North Merseyside
• Pub of the Year is the Guest House, Union Street, Southport. The impressive exterior is half timbered, and inside the walls are wood-panelled. It is mostly unaltered with three separate rooms, a drinking area around the bar and an outdoor drinking area to the rear. It regularly sells up to 11 real ales.
• Cider Pub of the Year is the Grasshopper, Sandon Road, Hillside. In addition to a good selection of real ales, this two-roomed micropub has the widest choice of ciders in the area. There are tables to the front where you can sit and enjoy the sunshine – when we get any.

Club of the Year
Formby Golf Club in Cricket Path, Formby. This club has recently been celebrating the return to playing cricket after the lockdown. With a comfortable club house serving real ale, what better way to enjoy what has been described as the King of Sports? 

► This is one of a series of articles that I write for the CAMRA column in our local papers, the Southport Visiter and Ormskirk Advertiser. Older articles on local pubs are here.

CAMRA local pubs of the year awards

The Southport and West Lancs CAMRA branch covers parts of two counties: Southport and Formby in Merseyside and, as you'd expect, western Lancashire. Consequently the branch makes two sets of awards, and these are the results.

The North Merseyside Pub of the Year is the Sparrowhawk, Southport Old Road in Formby. The Cider Pub of the Year is the Grasshopper, Sandon Road in Hillside. The Club of the Year is the Fleetwood Hesketh S&S Club, Fylde Road, Southport.

The West Lancashire Pub of the Year is Tap Room No 12 in Burscough Street, and the Cider Pub of the Year is the Court Leet in Wheatsheaf Walk, both in Ormskirk. By coincidence, I wrote about these two pubs in January. No clubs were entered for Club of the Year.

These awards are determined after visits over twelve months by ordinary CAMRA members, and a shortlist is derived from their scores. The pubs on the shortlist are then visited by a team of judges (including Yours truly this time for the cider pub scoring) who make the final decisions. The pubs themselves do not usually know they are in the running for an award.

My congratulations to all the winners.

Please note that CAMRA receives no money or payment in kind for making such awards. The same applies to entries in the Good Beer Guide; if someone claiming to be from CAMRA asks a licensee for payment in return for an award or for being listed in a beer guide, it is a scam. I have recently heard reports of this happening in the north west.

North Merseyside Pub of the Year shortlist

The Guest House is the only traditional
pub in the competition

CAMRA Southport & West Lancs Branch has produced a shortlist for the North Merseyside Pub of the Year award.

The only traditional pub on the list is the Guest House, Union Street, Southport. As well as offering up to 11 real ales and a real cider, they also hold a popular quiz every Thursday, live music most Saturdays and informal acoustic song and music sessions on the first and third Mondays of the month. Free bar snacks are sometimes provided.

The Tap & Bottles in Cambridge Walks, Southport, presents a choice of real ales that you rarely see elsewhere, craft beers and a wide selection of bottled beers. Live music also features here with Grateful Fred's Ukelear Deterrent on the last Tuesday of the month, and an informal acoustic song session on the final Monday. Other musical events also feature.

The Grasshopper in Sandon Road, Hillside, has seven real ales and a choice of real ciders. It often holds special events, such as beer and cider festivals, quizes, and Lancashire Night. There is an acoustic song session on the second Wednesday of the month, and CoLAPS, the Coast of Lancashire Ale Preservation Society, meets here on the first Monday.

The Sparrowhawk on Southport Old Road in Formby describes itself as a “pub restaurant serving fresh food, cask ales and wine”. It is a gastropub, but one with a good choice of changing real ales and, on my last visit, a real cider. While the menu looks impressive, you are welcome if you simply want to go there for a drink.

The Beer Station in Victoria Road, Formby, close to Freshfield Station sells a range of local real ales, quality lager, wines and spirits, with pork pies and other snacks available. They have held Meet The Brewer nights and will present a gin tasting event featuring Turncoat Gin on Thursday 28 February.

Goat's Milk is Champion

I see that CAMRA's Champion Beer of Britain for 2017 is Churchend Goat's Milk, a 3.8% beer described on the brewery's website as 'Golden yellow nectar. Pale barley, crystal malt and oats, blend to fill the palate with flavour. Aromatic hops dance over the tongue for a gentle hop finish.' That sounds like the kind of beer that is very popular at the moment, although that's not a criticism. A brewery spokesperson explained the name: "We originally brewed and named it for a festival taking place in the Goat pub, and the beer just caught on."

Silver in the Overall Winner category was won by Bishop Nick Brewery's Ridley’s Rite, with Tiny Rebel Cwtch taking the bronze. Two years ago, Cwtch won the Champion Beer award. When I tried Cwtch after it first won, I was distinctly unimpressed and didn't see it as anything special at all, which just goes to show how subjective judgements on flavour can be.

Only two beers from around this area (Merseyside and Lancashire) feature, both from Blackedge Brewery in Horwich, which is about 25 miles from Southport: Pike won Silver in the Best Bitters category, and Black Port Porter won Joint Silver in the Speciality category. The only other beer from the North West was Red Bull Terrier from Barngates in Cumbria which won Silver in the Strong Bitter category.

For the full list, click here and scroll down. It is difficult to comment on the beers that have won awards, seeing that, as far as I can recall, I've had only three of them: Cwtch Tiny Rebel, Oakham Citra and Saltaire Triple Chocoholic. 

I tend to take these awards with a pinch of salt because the final choice is made by a comparatively small number of people on a panel chosen by CAMRA. I'm not sure how it could be done otherwise because, as my own experience of knowing only three beers among the 2017 award winners shows, ordinary drinkers don't have access to the full range of beers available nationally - not unless they spend every waking hour touring pubs and beer festivals all over the country, in which case they'd also have to be quite rich. A simple ballot of all members would just throw up a bewildering range of local choices without any clear winner. While consultation among members does take place via local tasting panels and regional heats, in the end final decisions have to be made, so I accept this system, though imperfect, as probably about as good as we can get.

Most industry awards are simply marketing devices. For example, the Oscars, which get a ridiculously disproportionate amount of attention, are no more than industry gongs awarded by insiders to each other. Impartial assessments of quality they are not. In fact, they are of less value to us consumers that, say, the UK Plumber of the Year award - much more use if your boiler packs in.

The CAMRA awards are genuinely different in that they are not industry gongs, but awarded by outsiders from an independent campaign, which is why winning them is valued more highly than other awards determined by insiders: this award, brewers can justifiably claim, was decided by informed customers.

Ultimately, while they're not perfect, they're not worthless either. If I were a brewer, I'd be very pleased to receive one.

Local breweries winning awards

I always like seeing our local breweries win awards, so I'm particularly pleased that three local breweries have won awards at SIBA’s North West Independent Beer Awards 2016 held in Bolton this month.

Southport Brewery won:

• Gold for bottled Dark Night, a mild.
• Silver for bottled Golden Sands, a golden ale.
• Bronze for cask Golden Sands.

Liverpool Organic Brewery won:

• Silver in the bottled premium strong beers category for Imperial Russian Stout.
• Bronze in the pale ale category for Cascade.

Formby's Red Star Brewery won: 

• Gold in the bottled porter category for Partisan.

The full results are here. Well done to all concerned. The only one I haven't had here is the Imperial Russian Stout: I must keep an eye out for it.

Historical fact: Southport Brewery's Dark Night was named after the tragic Mexico lifeboat disaster of 1886 which happened locally.

SIBA is the Society of Independent Brewers.

Champion Beer of Britain 2016 - all the results

I've had 9 of these 23 beers. Slightly disappointed that there are no beers from local (Merseyside and West Lancs) breweries.

Supreme Champion 

1. Gold – Binghams, Vanilla Stout
2. Silver – Old Dairy, Snow Top
3. Bronze – Tring, Death or Glory

Bitter Class

1. Gold – Timothy Taylors, Boltmaker
2. Silver – Tiny Rebel, Hank
3. Joint Bronze – Hawkshead, Bitter & Salopian, Shropshire Gold

Best Bitter Class 

1. Gold – Surrey Hills, Shere Drop
2. Silver – Salopian, Darwin's Origin
3. Joint Bronze – Colchester, Colchester No.1 & Tiny Rebel, Cwtch

Strong Bitter/Ale Class 

1. Gold – Heavy Industry, 77
2. Silver – Hawkshead, NZPA
3. Bronze – Adnams, Ghost Ship

Golden Ale Class 

1. Gold – Golden Triangle, Mosaic City
2. Silver – Grey Trees, Diggers Gold
3. Bronze – Marble, Lagonda IPA

Mild Class 

1. Gold – Williams Bros, Black
2. Silver – Mighty Oak, Oscar Wilde
3. Bronze – Acorn, Darkness

Speciality Beer Class 

1. Gold – Binghams, Vanilla Stout
2. Silver – Saltaire, Triple Chocoholic
3. Bronze – Titanic, Plum Porter

Real ale events in the next two weeks

There are several real ale events happening locally over the next two weeks:

• Wigan is fortunate in having a varied range of good real ale pubs, so CAMRA Southport and West Lancs is organising a social trip by train to Wigan town centre on Saturday 28 May. If you are interested, join in, member or not. Meet at 10.30am to organise people into pairs so that they can buy the cheaper Duo tickets, then depart at 10.51am. There are six pubs in Wigan listed in the Good Beer Guide: the Anvil, the Berkeley, Doc's Symposium, the John Bull Chophouse, the Raven and Wigan Central (Wigan's Pub of the Year), all fairly close to the station. The precise itinerary will be decided on the day when Wigan CAMRA members will join the group.

• 

  CAMRA West Lancs area Pub of the Year

  CAMRA Southport and West Lancs will be meeting in the Heatons Bridge on Wednesday 1 June to present the Branch's Pub of the Year (West Lancs area) award at about 8.30pm. Non-members who are interested in seeing this old canalside pub receive its well-deserved award are welcome to come along. Get there by catching the 375 bus on Lord Street by Morrison's at 7.45pm; it stops right outside the pub and the last bus back is at 10.20pm. The Heatons Bridge is at 2 Heatons Bridge Road (B5242), Scarisbrick, L40 8JG. Phone: 01704 840549.

• Liverpool Organic Brewery is holding another Waterloo Beer Festival from Thursday 26 May 2016 to Sunday, 29 May 2016. It will take place in the atmospheric surroundings of the Old Christ Church in Waterloo Road, Liverpool, L22 1RE, a short walk from Waterloo Station. They will be offering more than 150 Real Ales, Ciders and Perries, continental bottled beers, wines and Liverpool Gin. There will also be food stalls. More info and tickets here.

Live music (Pete Rimmer & Bill
Hackney) in the Tap & Bottles

• The Birkenhead Beer and Cider Festival, organised by Wirral CAMRA, will be taking place from Thursday 2 June to Saturday 4 June at the Recreation Centre, Prenton Park (Tranmere Rovers FC) in Birkenhead. Tickets and more information here.

• CAMRA Southport and West Lancs will be meeting in the Tap and Bottles micropub on Tuesday 7 June to present the Branch's Pub of the Year (Merseyside area) award at about 8.30pm. As it's a pub, non-members are of course welcome to come along. The pub is at 19 Cambridge Walks, Southport, PR8 1EN, next to the Atkinson (arts centre).

Local breweries win awards

Red Star is a new brewery in Formby, between Liverpool and Southport. It's a 10 barrel microbrewery and has been producing cask ales for about six months. I first tried their beers three months ago in the Corner Post, a micropub in Crosby, and more recently in the Guest House, Southport. I've liked all their beers that I've tried so far.

I'm pleased to learn that they won a gold in the Speciality Beer cask category at the SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers) annual beer competition. The successful beer was their Weißbier, a naturally cloudy Belgian-style wheat beer; I've yet to see this, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

Southport Brewery won gold for the bottled version of their Dark Night Mild and bronze for the bottled version of their Shrimper. I've enjoyed both of these in draught form.

Well done to all concerned.

Champion Beer of Britain 2015

CAMRA has just announced this year's Champion Beers of Britain at the Great British Beer Festival at Olympia in London. I've never had most of these beers, and haven't even heard of some of the breweries. Disappointingly, there are no local breweries in the list.

Supreme Champions

• Gold - Tiny Rebel - Cwtch
• Silver - Kelburn - Jaguar
• Bronze - Dancing Duck - Dark Drake

Mild

• Gold - Williams Brother- Black 
• Silver - Rudgate - Ruby Mild 
• Bronze - Great Orme - Welsh Black

Best Bitter

• Gold - Tiny Rebel - Cwtch
• Silver - Highland - Scapa Special 
• Joint Bronze - Barngates - Tag Lag
• Joint Bronze - Salopian - Darwin's Origin

Speciality

• Gold - Titantic - Plum Porter 
• Joint Silver - Kissingate - Black Cherry Mild
• Joint Silver - Saltaire - Triple Chocolate 
• Bronze - Hanlons - Port Stout

Bitter

• Gold - Pheasantry - Best Bitter
• Silver - Acorn - Barnsley Bitter
• Joint Bronze - Purple Moose - Madog's Ale
• Joint Bronze - Timothy Taylors - Boltmaker 

Golden

• Gold - Kelburn - Jaguar
• Silver - Adnams - Explorer 
• Bronze - Blue Monkey - Infinity

Strong Bitter

• Gold - Dark Star - Revelation
• Silver - Salopian - Golden Thread
• Bronze - Grain - India Pale Ale

Champion Bottle-Conditioned Beer

• Gold - Harveys - Imperial Extra Double Stout
• Silver - Fyne Ales - Superior IPA
• Bronze - Mordue - India Pale Ale

Deciding the best

The Grafton in Kentish Town, London has been declared the Sky Great British Pub of the Year 2014. These awards are organised by the Publican's Morning Advertiser, the weekly newspaper of the pub trade, and Sky is a significant sponsor. There are 17 awards; you can find the full list here.

For all I know the Grafton may well be a worthy winner, but what struck me was that of these 17 awards, 4 are in the north of England, while the remaining 13 are firmly in the south, as this interactive map makes clear. Three of the northern pubs are in Yorkshire and one in Lancashire, while the northernmost of the remainder is in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. Most of the winners are in the country or small towns: cities are seriously under-represented. The same bias applies to most of the regional winners.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the awards reflect a certain perception that English country inns represent the best of British pubs, a view supported by the fact that no Scottish or Welsh pubs appear in what is supposed to be a list that covers all of Britain. In fact, Wales is bundled together for judging purposes with the West Midlands, and Scotland with Yorkshire and the North East: devolution seems to have gone right over the Morning Advertiser’s head.

I'm not an uncritical CAMRA member, but I do believe that CAMRA's network of local, regional and national pub awards - decided as they are by ordinary drinkers, not by a self-appointed panel, a newspaper or the industry - provides a fairer and more representative cross-section of our best pubs. It's not perfect, but in my opinion it's the best system currently available.

I'll be publishing a list of our local pubs in the 2015 Good Beer Guide in a future post soon.

Champion Beers of Britain 2014

These were announced yesterday at the Great British Beer Festival in London. How many have you had? I think my total is seven. Some people will probably whinge that a regional brewer such as Timothy Taylor won, but that is just prejudice. We shouldn't discriminate against a brewer just because the beers are brewed in a proper brewery rather than a shed in the garden. 

Supreme Champions
Gold - Timothy Taylor, Boltmaker
Silver - Oakham, Citra
Bronze - Salopian, Darwin's Origin

Champion Bottled Beer
Gold - Marble, Chocolate Marble
Silver - St Austell,Proper Job
Bronze - Spire, Prince Igor Imperial Russian Stout

Mild
Gold - Bank Top, Dark Mild
Silver - Branscombe Vale, Mild
Bronze - Castle Rock, Black Gold

Best Bitter
Gold - Salopian, Darwin’s Origin
Silver - Redwillow, Directionless
Joint Bronze - Langton, Inclined Plane Bitter, and Purity, Mad Goose

Speciality
Gold - Saltaire, Triple Chocoholic
Silver - Offbeat, Way Out Wheat
Bronze - Peak Ales, Chatsworth Gold

Bitter
Gold - Timothy Taylor, Boltmaker
Silver - Mighty Oak, Captain Bob
Joint Bronze - Flowerpots, Flowerpots Bitter, and Sambrooks, Wandle Ale

Golden
Gold - Oakham, Citra
Silver - Hawkshead, Cumbrian Five Hop
Bronze - Salopian, Hop Twister

Strong Bitter
Gold - Church End, Fallen Angel
Silver - Blue Monkey, Ape Ale
Bronze - Loch Ness, HoppyNESS

Derby Arms - pub of the year

The Derby Arms, Aughton

The Derby Arms in Prescot Road, Aughton, is this year’s CAMRA Pub of the Year (West Lancs area). The award was made to licensee Janice Brogden at the pub’s beer festival held in the poshest beer tent I’ve ever seen. The festival offered an interesting range of good real ales, ciders and perries and was well-attended over the weekend.

The Derby Arms is a highly visible, white building on the B5197 Ormskirk to Kirkby road. It is an attractive, traditional pub with four separate, cosy drinking areas, and is justly popular with a range of customers. There are also two outdoor drinking areas.

They serve a range of five real ales, two of which are permanent and three ever-changing, and always well-kept: not for nothing have they won the Pub of the Year award before. On the bar there is also a curiosity - to my eyes at any rate - which is keg Walkers Bitter at £1.50 a pint. I asked who brews it, but Jan's partner Mike wasn't sure: he suggested Adnams, but he did feel it was based on the old Walkers recipe. I may try a half next time I go.

They have a very popular, busy acoustic folk night every Wednesday evening (either join in or just listen), gypsy jazz on third Monday of the month and quiz nights on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They are also well-known for their good value meals, which are served all day until 8.00pm Monday to Friday and until 5.00pm Saturday and Sunday. The pub is not close to any built-up areas, and the nearest station is nearly one and a half miles way, but despite its isolated location, the Derby Arms is a successful and popular pub.

This is part of a series of articles that I am writing for the CAMRA column in our local paper, the Southport Visiter. Previous reviews are here.

Local pub awards, October 2013

These are the local CAMRA awards that were presented last Thursday at the Sandgrounder Beer Festival. I'm pleased to say that three of the winners are less than a mile from where I live, although that's definitely not why they won.

Licensees Of Excellence

• Eddie Loftus - Fishermans Rest, Birkdale
• Steve Gregory & Simon Cox - Freshfield, Formby
• Gail Heyes - Guest House, Southport
• Mike McCombe - Hop Vine, Burscough
• Peter Bardsley - Inn Beer Shop, Southport

Best Country Pub

• Ship, Lathom - Ray McKintey & Dave Coyle

Best Community Pub

• Zetland, Southport - Dennis Rowley & Karen Arrowsmith

Best Newcomer

• Will McCombe - Hop Inne Bier Shop, Ormskirk

Best Bar Persons

• James Cox - Disraeli’s, Ormskirk
• Adam Clark - Freshfield, Formby
• Kerris Halsall - Hopvine, Burscough

Special Award To Celebrate Fifty Years In The Licensed Trade

• Fred Hook - Guest House, Southport

Special Award For Outstanding Service To Promoting Real Ale

• Joe & Janette Anderson - formerly of Lakeside Inn, Southport.

One of the awards made last week 

The Freshfield: Merseyside Pub of the Year

The results are in for the CAMRA Merseyside Pub of the Year (POTY). This year the award has gone to one of ours: the Freshfield in Massams Lane, Formby, a short walk from Freshfield railway station. There were four finalists in this year's competition, and this is how they fared (in descending order):

The Freshfield, Merseyside POTY

1. The Freshfield, Formby.
2. Gallaghers, Birkenhead.
3. Stamps Too, Waterloo.
4. The Clock Face, St Helens.

None of the pubs scored badly in the competition, but I can't help noticing that, unusually, no pub in Liverpool city centre made it to the final. The only one I've never visited is the Clock Face, although I often used to drive past it many years ago when it was a Greenall Whitley house. I have been to Stamps Too and Gallaghers, and I like them both. The Freshfield won one of the two local Branch Pub of the Year awards a couple of months ago, and winning this is a credit to the team that reopened the pub in July last year after a major refurbishment.

Congratulations to all concerned; I'm looking forward to the presentation of the certificate, after which I'll be able to report on the range of beers as I haven't been in there for a while.

Guest House at the Ammies

Our local paper, the Southport Visiter, and the town's snappily-named Business Improvement District Development Group holds an awards ceremony called the Ambassador Awards with the aim of "celebrating the best of our town’s hospitality, leisure and retail". Nominations are made for a range of jobs, such as best waiter/waitress, chef, receptionist, shop assistant, and also for best restaurant, chippy, pub, café and so on. As many of the awards go to ordinary members of staff in some of the categories, I have no great objection to them, although the Visiter has largely failed in its attempts to make us call them "the Ammies".

The Guest House in Union Street, Southport

This year, the award for best pub/bar went, for a change, to a proper pub: my local, the Guest House. The newspaper report about the event stated that "Landlords Fred [Hook] and wife Gail have been at the Guest House for 12 years". This will probably be news to Gail's husband - Fred is Gail's business partner - but isn't that about par for the course for a local newspaper?

The runners up were the Sandgrounder (previous post here) on Lord Street, and the Phoenix (previous post here). Both are fine when they're not deafening you with sport, but neither is what you'd call a proper pub. Both have similarities to Wetherspoons, which isn't a criticism, just a description. The Guest House is undeniably a pub; it has three separate rooms and is just over 100 years old. Until the brewery was closed, it was the only pub in Southport belonging to Higsons of Liverpool. When I first went in there in the 1970s, the room on the right as you entered had a sign on the door stating "Gentlemen only", which disappeared on the day the Sex Discrimination Act came into force. That was also the first day that I entered that room, but even now out of habit I still tend to use the room on the left.

So well done the Guest House: yet another award to add to the many that it has won over the years.

For the record, Visiter is the correct spelling for the newspaper.

National Pub of the Year

The Baum says cobbles to the opposition

On the 12 October, I wrote that the Baum, a pub in Toad Lane, Rochdale, had won CAMRA's Greater Manchester Pub of the Year 2012. I have learnt that it has now won CAMRA's National Pub of the Year. Although it's not exactly local to me in Southport, it's good to see a North West boozer win the gong. 

As you can easily read what I wrote about it previously, I don't intend to repeat myself, except to point out that this quite an achievement, seeing that the building was an ironmonger's until just over 30 years ago. As I said recently in a different context, it is not easy to create that unique atmosphere that we associate with the word "pub" - it usually has to develop organically over many decades. Well done to the licensees; I hope to visit some day. It has eight handpumps, does a good range of food and has a large beer garden to the rear. It looks good in the picture.

My friend Tandleman has more details on his beer blog. The Baum is at 33-37 Toad Lane, Rochdale, OL12 0NU. ( 01706 352186.

Champion Winter Beer of Britain 2013

Here are the results of CAMRA's Champion Winter Beer of Britain Competition, which took place today at the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester. The Overall Champion was from West Yorkshire: Elland Brewery's 1872 Porter. The Silver went to the wonderfully-named Comrade Bill Bartram’s EAISS (Egalitarian Anti-Imperialist Soviet Stout) from Bartrams Brewery of Suffolk. No winners from the Merseyside or Lancashire areas, the nearest being Marble Brewery of Manchester who won Silver in the Stout category.

Local Pub Awards

The Southport beer festival (details here) opens at 6.00 p.m. tomorrow and early in the evening, the CAMRA Southport & West Lancs Branch will be making its annual wards. These are:

The Heaton's Bridge, Scarisbrick

Licensees of Excellence

• Janice Brogden and Mike Litherland of the Derby Arms, Prescot Road, Aughton.
• Gail Heyes of the Guest House, Union Street, Southport.
• Mike McCombe of the Hop Vine, Liverpool Road North, Burscough.

Merit Awards

• Simon Cox & Steve Gregory of the Freshfield Hotel, Massams Lane, Freshfield.
• Leslie Baker of the Yew Tree, Grimshaw Lane, Ormskirk.

Best Newcomer

• Anna Gervasoni of the Ring O' Bells, Ring O' Bells Lane, Lathom.

Best Country Pub

• The Heaton's Bridge Inn, Heatons Bridge Road, Scarisbrick (licensee: Steve Winrow).

The Railway, Ormskirk

Best Community Pub

• The King's Arms, Delf Lane, Downholland (licensee: David Storer).

Best Bar Staff

• Ceri Evans of the Railway, Derby Street, Ormskirk.

Branch Merseyside Pub Of The Year

Next Tuesday, the 22nd of May, our local CAMRA branch (Southport & West Lancs) will be making its Merseyside Pub of the Year award to the Guest House, which happens to be my local, as regular readers of ReARM will have gathered. Gail Heyes, the licensee, has told me that she wants the award to be received by her staff, as the pub's success owes a lot to them. I rather like this recognition of the workers' contribution.

I'm told that there will Morris dancing: the Southport Swords definitely, and possibly the Argarmeles Clog too. No doubt there will be some food on the bar, and overall I'm expecting a convivial evening. For those who don't know, the Guest House has up to 11 real ales. It's in Union Street, Southport, and the award is scheduled for 8.00 p.m.

Boggart Brewery award

Me with the certificate

Last Saturday, the 24 March, Southport & West Lancs CAMRA ran a coach trip to the brewery that won the Beer of the Festival at the Southport beer festival last September: Rum Porter from Boggart Brewery of Newton Heath, North Manchester.

Boggart is situated in Wilson’s Park, an industrial estate on the site of the long-gone Wilson’s Brewery; the brewery is actually in some of the former Wilson’s buildings that have survived the bulldozer. Mark Dade was our host, and invited us to help ourselves to two small casks of beer: a golden ale and the multi- award winning Rum Porter. The latter is made as a classic porter in the usual way but with a full bottle of dark rum poured into each cask. He also offered us a chance to taste the rum porter without the rum. Both beers were excellent, and we were urged to drink up both casks, as anything left would be poured down the drain. We conscientiously prevented that tragedy occurring. Mark chatted about a number of subjects, such as the brewing process, the origin of the brewery’s name and the problems in getting empty casks back. Then Doug presented the certificate on behalf of the branch to our applause, after which Mark told us it was the 19th award the brewery had received in the last 18 months.

Afterwards our coach took us to Rochdale Road to visit two great Manchester pubs: the Angel and the Marble Arch, both of which had a good range of beers, and the Marble Arch with its own brewery. I found the beer good in both pubs. The weather being glorious, quite a few of us sat outside for the first time this year in the Angel’s beer garden, admiring the traffic and the block of flats opposite.

On our return to Southport, some of us went straight home while others carried on, in my case in the Guest House.  A very enjoyable and interesting day.