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

Yes, it's that time of year once again. The lazy Summer days of trying to decide which pub has been the best in London over the past 12 months.

Almost unbelievably, this is the seventh year of the competition, and three different pubs have won the accolade - but who will it be this time? Which prestigious pub will attain the additional prestige of having their prestigious name on the most prestigious trophy - the trophy of prestige?

As usual we'll start by returning to last year's top five, and then, in part two, we'll look at five 'New Entries' that weren't in the contest last time. After that's it's as simple as picking out a worthy winner - and by 'simple' I mean 'actually rather painstakingly difficult', obviously...

So, here we go! Prestige!

BV London Pub of the Year 2016-17 - the results

It's that time again. A little later than usual, but then it was a particularly difficult decision this year.

We've reviewed last year's top five and five spanking new entries, and it's all change. (Quite literally as last year's No. 3, the Clapham Craft Beer Co has now ceased to be!)

Pints have been quaffed, menus sampled, atmospheres taken in, and all for that noblest of causes -  picking out the best damn pub in all of London.

BV London Pub of the Year 2016-17 - part one

It's that time of the year again: The excitement! The suspense! The engraving of a trophy with the name of the same pub that won last year, probably!

Yep, we're back for the 2016-17 London Pub of the Year contest. And this time it's a bit strange because this is the first contest since I moved out of London.

I've not gone far away and still drink regularly enough in the capital, but before we get started, I really ought to mention my new local, the Radius Arms micropub in Whyteleafe.

It's not in Greater London so it's not eligible for the contest, but if it were, it'd have a serious shout of winning. Landlord Vince keeps a constantly-changing range of both cask and keykeg beers from Premier League breweries and an unrivaled cider selection.

What the Radius understands - and what so many pubs consistently fail to get - is that to be a serious drinking pub you need to offer variety, and variety isn't just about the names on the pumpclips, it's about offering real choice: light and dark; sessionable and strong; supermalt and hyper-hopped and everything in between.

So, whichever pub wins this years contest, I'll probably be drinking there less than I will at the Radius. Sorry, guys!

That said, there are of course several seriously stunning places to drink across all corners of the capital, so let's get cracking:

BV London Pub of the Year 2015-16 - the results

Winning stuff is great.

Team GB is having the best overseas Olympics ever and might even pip China to second place in the medals table which would be a bloody fantastic achievement. If any of our medalists are reading - I'll buy you a pint. And that goes for all those unlucky fourth-place finishers too. Maybe there should be some sort of Tin medal for them or something?

Dominating the competition...

Now we can all safely forget about how shit England were in the footie, and enjoy some real sport. Watching the athletics always makes me want to go out and buy a load of javelins.

But it's not the only big competition exciting us this Summer - there are trophies (well, a trophy) to be awarded in the BV London Pub of Year.

BV London Pub of the Year 2015-16 - part one

So, it's that time of the year again. That half-way point in the calendar when I pick my Pub of the Year, which is probably the same as it was last year. You know the drill by now.

Except that things are a bit different this time.

Rather foolishly I committed myself at the start of 2016 to visiting every single brewery in London, with a view to putting out a book on the subject. That's going alright. Sort of. I've done just about half of the current total, so I'm just about on schedule.

The thing is, once you've one brewery (ok, a few) you really have seen them all. You start to see sacks of malt in your dreams. You try to find something that makes this fermentation vessel different from those fermentation vessels you saw last Saturday. All those American Pale Ales start to blur into one continuous stream of golden hoppiness. Another day. Another railway arch. Another industrial estate...

BV London Pub of the Year 2014-15 - the results

Choosing a Pub of the Year is never easy.

It's not, for example, like choosing socks, which is one of the simplest decisions facing mankind. You can't just pick pubs out of the sock drawer and say 'yep, these'll do', or chuck it back in on the basis that a vibrantly-coloured Pac-Man design might not be the most appropriate internal footwear for your grandfather's funeral.

This is the fourth BV Pub of the Year contest, and one thing I learned pretty quickly is that it's difficult. Your brain becomes the battlefield for endless power-struggles over which pubs to exclude, why one pub worth seven points is not quite as good than other with the same score, or why that might be unfair on the first pub. You've never had a bad pint at Pub X, but in your heart of hearts, you know that the atmosphere doesn't live up to Pub Y, but your head of heads can't qualify exactly why not...

It's like having a massive fuck-off draw full of flawless, fragrant-smelling pairs of socks, none of which could possibly cause offence to anybody at any time.

BV London Pub of the Year 2014-15 - part two

If you thought part one of the 2014-15 PotY competion was business as usual, you'd be a little bit right. Or a lot bit right.

But what makes the competition fresh and interesting every year - and hopefully injects at least some element of surprise - is the arrival of the new contenders. Five lovely little pubs that weren't in the competition last year but are hoping to take top spot nonetheless.

And, unlike the General Election, there are no desperate retreads amongst our intake - these five are all PotY debutants! And one of them even does the world's best sausage rolls!