Stroud CAMRA launched the 2025 Good Beer Guide on Sunday 29 September at the Carpenters Arms, Westrip, which is in the guide for the first time ever. The weather had smiled on us in previous years but not this time, and we were forced to conduct proceeding indoors instead of in the pub’s garden with its panoramic views, writes Tim Mars.
The pub was busy and we had a good turnout of CAMRA members — including one from our neighbouring Dursley branch — to celebrate the publication of the 52nd edition of the UK’s best-selling beer and pub guide, and the Carpenters’ achievement in being listed as one of the best real ale pubs in the area. Many Stroud CAMRA members were involved in visiting and shortlisting pubs for inclusion in the guide, so this was also a celebration of their efforts, culminating in the publication of the end result.
Owner and licensee Sammie arrived just in time, rolling straight from serving food at the Stroud Five Valleys Meningitis Walk start/finish line. To say she was thrilled to be included in the guide for the first time is an understatement.
Copies of the Good Beer Guide were available at the launch at the special members’ price of £13 — £4 less than the £16.99 cover price. The 2025 GBG is published in two editions with covers featuring Coronation Street’s The Rovers Return and Emmerdale’s Woolpack. The covers may divide opinion but there was almost universal relief that the regional format trialled over the last two years has been abandoned in favour of the time-honoured county-by-county format.
The Guide was published by CAMRA on Thursday 26 September.
Stroud CAMRA chose these eight pubs to be included in the guide this year:
Ale House, Stroud
Carpenters Arms, Westrip
Crown & Sceptre, Stroud
Hog, Horsley
Lord John, Stroud
Old Lodge Inn, Minchinhampton
Prince Albert, Rodborough
Stroud Brewery Tap, Thrupp
The self-styled ‘beer-lovers’ bible’ is fully revised and updated each year and this year lists 4500 pubs, bars, and clubs across the United Kingdom that serve the best real ale. Each entry contains a short description as well as details of regular and guest beers both local and national.
The guide is completely independent, with listings based entirely on evaluation by members of CAMRA’s 200-plus local branches. The unique breweries section lists every brewery—micro, regional and national—that produces real ale in the UK, and their beers. Tasting notes for the beers, compiled by CAMRA-trained tasting teams, are also included.
Stroud CAMRA (which covers postcodes GL5, GL6 and GL10) has more than 150 members who file reports on the pubs they visit, rating them for the range and quality of their beers, as well as welcome, service and atmosphere. At our monthly meetings, these reports are used to draw up a shortlist of pubs to be visited and evaluated for inclusion in the Good Beer Guide.
As part of this evaluation process, each shortlisted pub is visited unannounced at least three times a year — in spring, summer and autumn — to see how the pub fares at different seasons, whether the number of beers available varies, and if the temperature and quality is consistent on a hot summer’s day as well as on a cold autumn night.
Teams comprising at least two members armed with electronic thermometers assess each pub, and these teams are rotated to avoid unconscious bias. So every pub is assessed by three separate teams of assessors — a minimum of six different individuals. As far as possible they try to judge the quality and condition of the beer on offer — the part that is down to the licensee and the cellarmanship — rather than whether or not a particular beer is to their taste.
