There are three Keswick hostelries featured in the 51st edition of the UK’s best-selling beer and pub guide which has just been published — last year there was only one.
The CAMRA Good Beer Guide was once described in Time Out magazine as “the definitive rundown of the best places in the UK to get a pint of real ale, from cosy country inns to upmarket-style bars”.
The only criterion for a pub being listed is reliably well kept real ales and entries are selected by volunteer members of the West Cumbria branch of the Campaign for Real Ale.
Real ale is cask-conditioned living beer that is served traditionally either by hand pump or straight from a barrel.
The Fox Tap Bar at the Keswick Brewery is one of the three featured because it serves a consistently fresh pint of ale. The brewery was established by Sue Jefferson in 2006 on the site of a brewery that closed in 1897 and she opened the public bar in 2019. Beers on sale in the Fox Tap Bar are usually Keswick Gold, Fox Pale and several changing Keswick Brewery beers.
The Wainwright in Lake Road sells Fell Tinderbox and six changing real ales. This popular walkers’ pub comprises two drinking areas served by an L-shaped bar and the interior is themed with Wainwright memorabilia.
The Dog and Gun, owned by Greene King, sells up to eight real ales and as the name suggests is extremely dog friendly. It always sells Theakston’s Old Peculier and is renowned for its home made Hungarian goulash.
Making a welcome return to the guide is the Coledale Inn at Braithwaite, owned and run by a local family for many years and it has tree changing hand pumped ales.
A new entry in the Good Beer Guide is the Glaramara Hotel at Seatoller, which is in a striking location in the jaws of the Borrowdale Valley.
It has been seriously upgraded in recent years and is set in five acres of grounds. The friendly public bar is patronised by locals and tourists and has built up a reputation for keeping a good pint of beer. Ales on sale usually include Loweswater Gold and Tirril Borrowdale Bitter.
Just off the A66 is the Embleton Spa Hotel, run by a Keswick resident, where ales on the bar usually include Loweswater Gold and another changing Cumbria brewed
beer.
Another new entry to the guide is The Sun Inn, at Bassenthwaite, which sells Jennings Cumberland Ale plus a changing beer.
The CAMRA Good Beer Guide is edited by Emma Haines and has more than 4,500 UK pub entries with details about their beer range, food, pub garden and accommodation.
It lists every British real ale brewery and every one of their beers, along with tasting notes.
The unusual cover artwork features an Iron Maiden-inspired graphic lifted from the beer pump clip of Robinson’s Trooper, a 4.7 per cent premium British beer.
