Picking up the phone to be told that you have been voted the Champion Pub of Britain is pretty mind blowing. You won’t have much time to let the news sink in because over the next few hours you’ll be taking calls from the national and international media asking you for comments, photos and interviews. As someone who has been involved in judging and presenting awards to pubs across the country, I have seen the massive benefit to a pub that comes from winning an award. To become the owner of an award winning pub you need to be prepared to think like a customer rather than a licensee.
In the UK there is only one pub consumer group of any influence or size. Google Champion Pub of the Year and the top and only significant hits are the CAMRA National Pub of the Year ones. CAMRA’s Pub of the Year award gets MASSIVE national and international publicity including TV coverage. Understandable really as the CAMRA competition is the only one with 200,000 independent pub goers behind it and awards made by customers always top trump trade/industry awards.
It is important to realise that to become the CAMRA National Pub of the Year your pub need to start winning awards at a local or what is referred to as branch level. Winning local Pub of the Year is an important first step on the road to becoming county pub of the year and eventually national pub of the year. There is also the opportunity to receive recognition by winning a Pub of the Season often awarded to recognise pubs that have done something different or extra. Something as simple as putting on an interesting, well kept beer and letting your CAMRA branch know about it could be all it takes to get you nominated for an award. Why wouldn’t you want that?
Brett says: Get to know and understand the published criteria that CAMRA uses to judge it’s competitions in order to consider what you are doing well or might do differently. Keep your local CAMRA branch informed about what is happening in your pub.