BV London Pub of the Year 2024-25 - the results

Go on then, let's have a winner, shall we?!?

It's been a close contest this year, particularly deciding which of the ten pubs make my top five and which will have to sit out next years competition to make way for plucky young upstart newcomers, but thems the breaks...

Indeed, last year's winner, the Star & Garter in Bromley has narrowly failed to make the final this year and I do feel a slight pang of sadness, but I'm sure they'll be back. (If you haven't read parts one and two, this won't mean a whole lot of jack shit, so check those out first!)

Right...

BV London Pub of the Year 2024-25 - part two

Welcome to the second half of the 2024-25 London Pub of the Year award. 

In the first installment we revisited last years top five, and now we're going to check out five brand new entries. (Well, two of them are brand new, the other three are, in Top-of-the-Pops parlance, re-entries, but what the fucky hey.)

Let's chuffing well crack on, shall we?

BV London Pub of the Year 2024-25 - part one

Like the proverbial Renegade Master, we are 'back once again'. It's time to pick a London Pub of the Year, and I feel like a very old hand at this lark nowadays.

Will there be a surprise winner? Has the Greater London pub scene dramatically changed in the last 12 months? Am I still deeply frustrated with the quality and choice of cask ale in the capital? 

All these questions and more will be answered over the next few days and soon enough a winner will be crowned.  If you're not familiar with how the contest works (because even I have some rules to stick to!) check out the previous years. 

Now we'll crack on by revisiting each of last year's Top Five, and in a few days time we'll have the five newcomers/retreads. One of these ten pubs is going to be announced as my London Pub of the Year 2024-25. Ooh goody. Whoop-de-bloody-do. Can't fucking wait. And so on.

BV London Pub of the Year 2023-24 - the results

What takes place once a year and involves me drinking large quantities of beer? 

Well, OK, it could be practically anything, admittedly, but, more specifically, it's the BV London Pub of the Year award. Yes, it's a painstaking process, visiting and revisiting pubs to determine which one is the best in the capital, but I've been doing it for well over a decade now and you can thank me later. With beer.

This is the big fuck-off final, so if you haven't read the first and second parts of the contest with all the important details'n'shit, you might want to do so now before the big reveal. 

(It's probably a bit like how you don't want to spoil your dinner by eating a Mars Bar, but it's OK to have olives or something.)

OK then...

 

BV London Pub of the Year 2023-2024 - part two

Here we go then, the second part of this year's BV London Pub of the Year contest. Check out part one first if you need to, then read on. This time it's five new or returning hostelries that weren't in last years competition, so let's keep things fresh with these beertastic beauties. 

You won't want to miss this! (If you do want to miss this then feel free to miss this, obviously.)

BV London Pub of the Year 2023-24 - part one

Unbelievable though it seems, the BV London Pub of the Year award has now been going for 12 years!

It seems to come around quicker every time, with the sort of overfamiliarity that can only breed the deepest of contempt, but I keep at it, and it's now time for the latest installment.

You probably know the drill: This time we revisit the Top Five from last year's competition, and next time there will be five 'new' contenders, then finally an overall winner will be announced.

Check out some previous years contests if you need to get a handle on the scoring system. Otherwise, let's crack the fuck on...

BV London Pub of the Year 2022-23 - the results

What combines the anticipatory excitement of a gender-reveal party with the hoppy aroma of a cool, fresh pint, and the excited anticipation of a different gender-reveal party?

That's right - the BV London Pub of the Year contest. And the hour is hand for the winner to be revealed, so let's crack on with our top five for 2022-23.

So, here we go...

(Oh yeah, read the actual content of parts one and two first, otherwise none of this will make any sense.)

So, here we go. For real this time...

BV London Pub of the Year 2022-23 - part two

Whenever there's a part one, there's always a part two. The second course. The revenge of the killer sequel, if you will.

And this is it - the second half of the 2022-23 London Pub of the Year contest, where five new contenders join the competition and go up against last year's Top Five.

This year sees a mix of complete newcomers and pubs that have been absent from the contest for a few years, so let's crack on...

BV London Pub of the Year 2022-23 - part one

It's that time of year again when I think about whether I should give up doing a London Pub of the Year award, and then go ahead and do it anyway. 

With another full year of no lockdowns and freedom-of-drinking under our belt, this year's contest should be a cracker. God only knows I've made enough visits to 'That London', as I'm now obligated to call it, in search of the capitals best pub. 

So here we go. This post will cover last years top five and part two will reveal five brand new challengers. Well, 'new' in the sense that they weren't in the 2021-22 contest.

Enjoy. Or don't.

BV London Pub of the Year 2021-22 - the results

As the returning officer for the constituency of London Pub of the Year 2021-22 I hereby declare the top five pubs in this years competition are as follows:

(If you haven't yet familiarised yourselves with the eight contenders - the 'ballot paper', if you will, you may possibly want read parts one and two where I review the pubs. And avert your eyes because the results are coming up.)

After an enforced three-year break, this years competition has been a fascinating one. It's Truss vs Sunak all over again, only this time Badenoch wins. Or something.

Anyhow, let's crack the fuck on...

BV London Pub of the Year 2021-22 - part two

What's hotter than the current ambient temperature and more competitive than the race to be Prime Minister?

Why, yes, it's the second part of the long-overdue Return of the Revenge of the Pub of the Year!

If you haven't already read part one, you might want to so so first. Otherwise, here we go with the remainder of this year's contest. Let's find the best pub in London, shall we?

And, not unexcitingly, we happen to begin with two former winners!

BV London Pub of the Year 2021-22 - part one

It might not feel like it, but it was fully ten years ago that I launched my London Pub of the Year award. 

And now, at last, it's back!

Yep, after a long wait it's time to once again pick my favourite pub in the Greater London area from the past 12 months. God I've missed doing this.

Counting down to the end of lockdown!

The last couple of years have been a bit, well, disrupted, and you'll probably know that for the 2019-21 period I decided upon a 'special award' for the Kentish Belle in Bexleyheath who went above and beyond the call of duty during the first lockdown as well as being a damn good pub the rest of the time. (Well, it was originally only going to be for 2019-20, but further lockdowns meant that this effectively held true for an additional year!)

Anyway, because I wasn't able to run the contest and do full pub surveys for the past two years, we're going to have a completely fresh start, and then - fingers crossed, no more fucking lockdowns please! - return to normal this time next year.

So, this year's competition will consist of eight pubs, including previous winners, returning old favourites and a couple of new entries, and the top five will automatically come back next year, alongside five new ones to keep things fresh.

Fot pit nor furpose!

What is the point of the Good Beer Guide?

No, really, what is the point of it now? 

It's not as though folks haven't been asking that question for some years, given that a thick paper volume that might be 18 months or more out of date is a bit of an anachronism in an age when we can all whip out our phones and search for up-to-date pub and beer gen in an instant.

But I myself didn't go out of my way to ask that particular question, partly because it would be labouring an obvious point, but mainly because I've long held the official CAMRA Guide in some esteem, largely based, probably, on the affection of nostalgia.

So I held off. Until now.

BV London Pub of the Year 2019-20 - a special award

The past few months have seen the pub and brewing industry hit spectacularly hard. It's almost spitefully trivial to even be thinking about a best pub competition at this time.

But my London Pub of the Year award has been going for quite a few years now, and it feels right to do something this year, for continuity and because no virus can stop me recognising a fucking good pub when I see one!

Can you tell where it is yet?

The award 'year' runs from July to June, which means that most of the serious decision-making inevitably takes place during the months of March, April, May and June... when of course everything was locked down tighter than a locksmiths chastity belt.

Therefore a full and fair contest just wouldn't be possible. However, a few weeks ago I came to a couple of decisions.

1. Assuming everything gets back to normal, the competition will make a full return for the year 20-21, and will include the five finalists from last year, plus a further five pubs. It will be open to all e.g. the five long-listed non-finalists from last year will not be excluded.
2. A 'special award' will be given out for 2019-2020, to a pub that went the extra mile during lockdown.
   

And that special award goes to...

BV London Pub of the Year 2018-19 - the results

Everybody enjoys a really close contest - there's nothing better than a thrilling nailbiter that goes right down to the wire. So much more enjoyable than watching a procession where the end result was never in doubt. No prizes for being in front, only for winning as they say.

(I've got loads more cliches left in the locker from my days as a BBC Sports writer, but that'll probably do.)

Anyway, this year's Pub of the Year competition has turned out to be pretty exciting. With five - count 'em, five! - pubs all level on points going into the final reckoning. Nothing like this has ever happened before and the margins involved in picking the winner will be finer than a fine old ale (see what happens when you stop using sporting cliches, you end up with beery analogies that are weaker than a table saison...)

BV London Pub of the Year 2018-19 - part two

Welcome back - it's time to crack on with the 2018-19 Pub of the Year contest, and here we have our five new contenders for this year. Four completely new ones and one re-entry hoping to make a triumphant return. Let's see how they stack up against last year's Final Five.

BV London Pub of the Year 2018-19 - part one

It's time, yet again, for the Ben Viveur London Pub of the Year awards to commence. Woohoo!

Now, don't get upset, but I'm going to have to make a decision as to whether this should be the last year of the competition, or keep it going.

This is the eighth year of the competition and it's always a pleasure. but the truth is that since I moved out of Greater London I've spent a lot less time drinking in eligible pubs. In all honesty, my pub surveying process has therefore become a bit rubbish. It's certainly not as thorough as it could be, and in all likelihood there are numerous very good pubs that aren't getting a fair crack of the whip simply because I haven't been to them.

But that's for me to think about over the next 12 months. There will be a 2018-19 award, and it starts right here, right now.

You know the drill - first I revisit last year's Top Five pubs, then in part two I check out some new contenders and re-entries. We think about it for a bit, talk it over with some fellow beer writers, and then, some time in August, this year's winner is crowned.

Let's get right to it then.

Golden Pints: BV's best beers of 2018

So, another year over and we're all a bit closer to the merciful release of death...

2018 was a moderately eventful period for beer. Brewdog and Cloudwater grabbed the headlines by returning to cask production; Brut IPA became the next big thing; sales of real ale slumped somewhat alarmingly and the CAMRA Revitalization Project, two years in the making, turned out to be something of a non-event.

Meanwhile ordinary people like me continued to drink beer every day and obsessively keep a record of it.

I managed pints of 623 new cask beers in 2018, bringing my overall total to just short of 9100 and every tickers' big target is now neatly in sight if I can up my game a little in 2019.

BV London Pub of the Year 2017-18 - the results

When I was a child, records used to rise up the hit parade over several weeks - if you topped the charts it was often the result of a lengthy climb. A song going 'straight in at No. 1' was almost unheard of.

During my teens, the music industry gradually changed, and with better marketing and more aggressive promotion in the first week of sale, it was an increasingly common occurrence. Eventually it became the norm for all No. 1 records to go straight in. A song actually climbing up the charts became the rarity.

This isn't some nostalgic music blog though, it's the much-anticipated Pub of the Year winner announcement. Last years top five vs five new- and re-entries. We've crunched the numbers and reached a final decision.

Mind you, talking of going straight in at No. 1...

BV London Pub of the Year 2017-18 - part two

So, this is it. Five new Pub of the Year contenders. If you haven't read the first part, it's probably better to check that out first, otherwise you'll have to wear your trousers backwards and go to bed in the morning.

If you're already up to date, then let's go...