Customer Reviews
Not great - By: A. Reynolds, 10 Sep 2007 
I'd agree with J Halstead's comments above for the most part.
I suppose it alll depends on what you look for in a pub. I too am a lover of real ale (although not a card carrying CAMRA member) & like pubs with good (well kept) beer & if possible good food. Not generallly a fan of bistro type pubs (although I went to the Drunken Duck in Cumbria mentioned above & enjoyed the beer & food that I had there).
In the past I have used this guide, the Good Beer Guide & the more recently established Real Ale Pub Guide.
This guide (the Good Pub Guide) tends to put more emphasis on ambience & food than the quality or range of beers offered. Listings tend to be made on reader recommendations & I'd question how often they are revisited/reviewed. Using my local pubs as a yard-stick this guide has included pubs that used to be good but now are seen as declining/over priced.
The Good Beer Guide is the best reference book for alll breweries & beers produced in Britain, some (very few) of the pubs can be a bit ropey but the beer is always good. Listings are reviewed each year by the local CAMRA branches.
The Real Ale Pub Guide tends to give the best of both worlds i.e. decent pubs with a good atmosphere & decent beer but because of this there are much fewer listings.
The one feature of this guide that I like is the round up of pubs in special categories, such as those near motorway junctions, those with big gardens etc. Shame the pubs recommended are usuallly not worth visiting.
Outstanding Guide - By: Mr. D. Walker, 20 Feb 2007 
My wife & I have used the Good Pub Guide for years to plan weekends away & short trips & so far every occasion has lead to us discovering a great little pub to eat & spend the night in. Pubs of character & charm that vary from the just plain good to the truly outstanding. The guide is patchy in it's coverage of certain areas of the country but it hasn't yet failed to lead to us to a great weekend.
Not very accurate at all in fact its rubbish - By: J. Halstead, 03 Feb 2007 5 years ago I bought the AA Pub Guide 2002 & its been like a bible to me. Its given detailed info about great pubs, accomodation availability & even some useful info about walking expiditions near to some of their highlighted pubs. OK, I understand that the "AA" presumably have a going concern into who appeared in that book but I digress. I'm a lover of beer, & a lover of pubs - I'm not a CAMRA member or anything, I'm just a 42 year old bloke with some good friends who like a beer now & then, I'm also a family man that likes to go away but be able to divert to a decent pub or find some nice accomodation at the same time. This book doesn't give you any of this. Its got full & detailed information about 1000's of pubs, but those that I've been to that feature here are not the best at alll. For example - Cumbria - For me, one of the homes of Real Ale - None of the Coniston pubs??!!! & only the Golden Rule in Ambleside. Wrong, indeed, pathetic. The Drunken Duck nr Hawkshead, once a superb real ale pub, is now a hoity toity place for lovers of Gordon Ramsay type meals & not a place for the walking boot or the chunky sweater. I'm from Solihull in the West Mids & for years the CAMRA pub of the year has been The Vaults in Knowle - Not mentioned here, nor is the Red Lion in the same village that is much improved in recent years. I'm off to North Yorkshire in a few weeks time, another haven for fantastic pubs & great beer - Sadly only 10% of them appear in this woeful book. Find an alternative.
