Real ale oasis recognised.
Black Country pub the Beacon Hotel in Sedgley is in line for a top national award. The best pubs in Britain as judged by CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, have been released to mark the launch of the Good Beer Guide 2015, which publishes today and the Beacon has been voted best in the West Midlands.
The 16 regional finalists of CAMRA’s Pub of the Year competition will go forward and have a chance to win the National Pub of the Year competition, won last year by The Swan with Two Necks in Pendleton. Pubs are judged on their atmosphere, decor, welcome, service, value for money, customer mix, but most importantly – quality of beer.
The Good Beer Guide’s Editor, Roger Protz, commended the top 16 pubs set to feature in the guide, “Being named as one the top 16 pubs in the UK is a huge honour that each of these pubs should be hugely proud of. These pubs have won their branch’s Pub of the Year, then gone on to win the regional competition, and now have a chance of being crowned National Pub of the Year – making every one of them a winner in their own right.”
Of the Beacon, home of the legendary Sarah Hughes Ruby mild, CAMRA said, “In the shadow of Sedgley beacon, this hotel has sat virtually unchanged for decades. It is a Grade II listed building, with a nationally important historic pub interior, where time has stood still. At its heart is a central servery with snob screens. There are four rooms, including one for families. The Sarah Hughes brewery lives in a tower at the back and supplies the pub. The Beacon lives up to its name – it shines.”
