Sixteen Staffordshire pubs have become new additions to the UK’s best-selling beer and pub guide.
The Campaign for Real Ale’s (CAMRA) Good Beer Guide 2025 features 88 pubs from across the county as well as 30 real ale breweries.
Amongst the new entries are Titanic Brewery’s bod Lichfield, which opened last year and serves a selection of Titanic ales, and Checkley traditional village pub the Red Lion, which is described as “traditional” and “comfortable”.
Church Eaton’s High Street pub the Royal Oak, which was once threatened from closure but was saved by a village consortium, and Penkridge’s Star Inn, on Market Place, have also made the book.
Newly-opened micro-style pub Olde Vic Ale House in Bilbrook, near Codsall in South Staffordshire, gets a mention and is praised for how it has been sympathetically converted in keeping with its origins. The pub has six handpumps offering cask ale and a cider, which are supported by three craft keg lines.
Pubs making a return to the guide are also spread across the county.
Amongst the listings are 13 pubs in Stoke-on-Trent, seven in Newcastle -under-Lyme, five in Burton upon Trent, four in Leek, Lichfield and Tamworth and three in Stone.
In Tamworth, Lower Gungate pub Sir Robert Peel, named after the former prime minister, is celebrating featuring in every issue of the guide since 2005.
Leek’s Benks, which has a 100-year-old mechanical till, gets a mention as a “friendly, unassuming street-corner free house run by the same family for over 50 years” and says the landlady is “passionate about beer quality and attention to detail”.
The guide says Bridge Street Ale House, in Newcastle–under–Lyme, “oozes charm and appeal” and is a “Newcastle real ale institution”. The Bridge Street venue hosts five changing beers.
Victorian pub The Glebe, a Joule’s establishment on Glebe Street in Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent, is described as having “one of the most stunning interiors in the area” and is praised for having a “quality kitchen menu” alongside offering “tasty and extensive cheese boards”.
Meanwhile, the guide says Wetherspoon pub the Linford Arms, is one not to be missed for visitors to Cannock.
The Good Beer Guide is celebrating its 52nd edition this year with two covers featuring two of the UK’s favourite locals: Coronation Street’s Rovers Return Inn, and Emmerdale’s Woolpack.
It lists 4,500 of the best pubs across the UK including over 900 pubs that are new to this edition.
Information in the guide is collated by thousands of CAMRA volunteers who give up their time every year to select the best of the best across the UK.
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