There was a motion before this year’s Members’ Weekend, AGM and Conference that I feel bears some looking at, and not just because I’ve had experience in updating guides.

The motion read: “This Conference instructs the National Executive to implement a comprehensive review of the Good Beer Guide. The review shall report to Conference in 2025 to ensure all relevant recommendations are implemented for the 2027 or 2028 edition, whichever is the more practicable.”

I’m not going to get into the practicalities of doing a comprehensive review within a year, but rather what that assessment could possibly return.

The Good Beer Guide (GBG) is a celebrated book, held up to showcase the best pubs throughout the country as well as list all the breweries. But over the years it’s become a bit of a contentious subject even within CAMRA itself.

For a national guide, there is no national selection process. Branches can have different ways to choose the pubs that they put into it. There is a minimum set of criteria that a pub has to meet, but it’s a lot more general than you’d think. One branch could, for instance, decide that no matter how great a pub is, if it doesn’t open seven days a week then it’s not going to be included. That particular pub may be on one side of a road, while a pub directly opposite could have the same opening hours but be in a different branch which doesn’t have that rule and is therefore included. Instances like this leave readers wondering why one pub got in, but the other didn’t, and after visiting both pubs it then leaves them wondering about the accuracy of the rest of the guide.

And the guide isn’t infinite either. There isn’t enough room in the printed book for every pub that could meet new nationalised selection criteria. Each branch has an allocation that it can fill, and it’s well known that the allocation will be filled regardless of the quality of the pubs, because it’s believed at a branch level that if it doesn't fill its allocation, it might not have as many entries the following year. This would restrict it if it then did have the great pubs to fill the quota. There are ways to address this, but none are perfect, and all come with their own problems.

Anything printed is limited and usually out of date before it hits the shelves especially in these turbulent times for pubs and breweries. There are regular updates released to members of closed or removed pubs, but that doesn’t really help someone who isn’t in CAMRA and may have just bought the book because they were visiting the UK. And with the rate of closures at the moment, those using the GBG for finding their way around in a new city run the very real risk of not finding anywhere to drink.

In short, the GBG isn’t the trusted resource it once was.

This isn’t to say that it’s no longer useful. In fact, it is still the first point of call for a lot of people planning a visit outside of their normal area. Although the majority of people that buy a GBG seem to flick through it for their local area, to check which old haunts are still in it, and then to put it on the shelf to gather dust along with their collection from previous years.

So when assessing how to change the GBG, we need to look at what it is currently used for, and what it could be used for. And then we need to look at how to achieve that, not just for now, but for years to come. Anything that is undertaken as a result of a review needs to be as future-proofed as possible, catering to current and future users.

First things first, to future-proof something like the GBG it needs to be digitised. This itself won’t future-proof it but will mean it’s easier to alter in the future as people’s use for it changes. Secondly it needs to be up to date, an annual update of information just doesn’t cut it in today’s world, let alone what things may be like in five to 10 years’ time when another review may be called for.

The basic digital version also needs to be free. There are so many no-cost alternatives available that people won’t be willing to pay for something unless it is far, far better than the rivals.

As a digital guide all pubs could be included regardless of quality, as they currently are on the WhatPub website. By being a full list of all pubs, the guide would immediately become a well-referenced resource driving a lot of traffic to the CAMRA domain and any on-screen promotion it held.

To differentiate between the great pubs that would normally be in the GBG, the good that should be and the mediocre that are still worth visiting, the branches should also be able to rate the pubs based on a set of nationally defined criteria that determines its quality. Having accredited, experienced members maintaining the data, as they already do, would put this site far above similar ones like TripAdvisor, which has major issues with spiteful bad reviews and personal opinions.

This is a major problem with information on the internet – it’s not always reliable. It could be argued that it’s getting better, things like Wikipedia’s disinformation issues are mostly a thing of the past for instance. But truth be told, there is far more disinformation on the internet now than there ever was, especially with the advent of AI-driven content. And the sites that you feel you should be able to trust, such as asking directly for information in Facebook groups, don’t give you information, but rather opinions. Almost every time someone posts the question: “I’m going to Randomtown, where’s good to drink?” not a single reply asks: “What sort of pub and beer do you like?” Instead, responses give a list of places that the writer likes. And we all know what people you meet on the internet are like – we used to be warned about them.

So, while you are getting up-to-date local knowledge, it may not answer your question. You could easily find that you’re recommended 10 small bars with loud beats on the stereo and 20 varieties of IPA on the keg lines when all you were looking for was some place quiet that sold locally brewed cask.

Local knowledge is one of CAMRA’s strong points, one that is created and curated by branches. It may be an oft-mocked organisation, it may seem to many that it’s stuck in the past, but CAMRA is respected – in a way. The Good Beer Guide is known for being honest, you can’t buy your way into it. At least not so much these days, no matter how many sandwiches and pies you offer at a branch meeting. And bringing that over to a digital version means that its credibility as a resource is far greater than anything else currently available.

That local knowledge is vitally important, and a good way to disseminate that would be to have the branches provide “local recommendation” status to pubs that it believes excel for various reasons such as providing consistently good beer, winning awards, or just generally being great places to get a pint. And, being digital, there would be no limit to the number of recommendations a branch could make.

This way, pubs can be sorted by their national criteria score, but also filtered by those that the branches recommend. And a combination of these two criteria would highlight to users the best of the best in each area.

A third set of criteria can also be introduced that would allow members to “vote” for the pub they are in, which could help to activate dormant members as well as encourage people to join the Campaign. This vote wouldn’t be the same as the National Beer Scoring System (NBSS) but rather for the pub overall, its ambience, level of service, cleanliness, etc. It’s simple enough to check a user’s location within an app and match that against the venue. If the user is a member and in the venue, then it can offer them the ability to rate the pub. The average of these scores can then be shown alongside the pub’s entry, providing a wider view of what people think of it. Members could also be prompted to score their beers using the NBSS when the app recognises that they are at a venue (a notification that can be turned off to prevent it getting annoying).

Further member-only features can easily be included as well, such as offline storage when visiting pubs outside mobile coverage or for use on Wi-Fi-only devices. Also, the ability to submit reviews including photos, although this would also mean the need for moderation that could be undertaken at a branch level if there are volunteers to fulfil that role, or by moderation in other branches. There will be controversy with some ratings, as is to be expected. But as long as there is a transparent process in place to allow pubs to highlight potential issues, and for CAMRA to investigate possibly vexatious or targeted low scoring, then it would act as a benefit to the Campaign.

The digital version would also allow for much quicker updates, without having to wait until the next annual release. So, each time a pub is found to be contravening CAMRA rules, it could easily have its recommendation or national criteria score updated or removed. And when contraventions have been addressed, they could just as easily be put back in. Although major updates such as branch recommendations should be limited to quarterly or half yearly to allow for stability. The guide should be a marketing tool all year round, not just on release day. Trying to sell a Good Beer Guide app or website access just won’t work. While there is a free alternative, people won’t pay, and Google is a no-cost alternative. Rather than looking at getting income from its use, it’s better to look at it being used to drive membership; helping to stem the loss of overall numbers and gaining the fees from members. By making such a website and app free for basic use, people are more likely to start using it to get their information about pubs and beers which would build CAMRA’s reputation. By offering additional features to members only, the new GBG can be a tool to increase membership numbers (with those membership fees they entail) rather than direct guide sales. The free-to-use version can have suitable, subtle adverts on it, but the member version should be (mostly) ad-free; a benefit of being in CAMRA. Although, if the design is done properly, a good top banner advert could in itself be an ongoing source of revenue negotiated with relevant sponsors, rather than that once-a-year purchase of the physical edition.

The idea of a printed guide shouldn’t be discarded though, but rather embraced and enhanced. We’ve already covered that the majority of use for the current guide is to plan a visit to a new place, or to check what’s in your own area. But there’s also the often-ignored aspect that the guide is supposed to be the best pubs in the country. However, by trying to fill branch and regional quotas, and with varying selection criteria, this element is often called into question. This is especially done by pubs that don’t get selected for reasons as spurious as “to give others a chance” or “we didn’t have space this year”. A way to improve this is to split the GBG into multiple books. Each region would have its own regional guide along with a national one.

The regional guides would be those pubs that reach and maintain a constant high level of quality. Some regions may not have as many as others, and we need to accept that. With separate regional guides done in this manner the number of entries would only be restricted by the qualifying pubs, not the space available to print. And if an area has a lot of pubs that would qualify, then that region can be split such as North and South London having separate books. CAMRA already produces some local guides, with Manchester’s Best Beer Pubs and Bars by Matthew Curtis being the most recent, joining London’s Best Beer Pubs & Bars by Des de Moor. The new regional guides could follow in the same vein, becoming collectable items in themselves and more useful reference books than the number of entries given over to a region in the current Good Beer Guide.

The national guide can then be the best of the best, regardless of where those pubs are. A Top 1,000 pubs in the country, based on the three criteria used in the digital version – national selection, branch recommendation, and member scoring. Getting into this new style GBG would be a much bigger achievement, as currently pubs only have to be the best in their area. And as such, the printed guide would hold more value to the drinker and be more celebrated by the publicans.

By switching the focus of the GBG to an online, up-to-date and interactive reference the reputation can be increased, losing the “out-of-date-before-it’s-printed” stigma as well as the varying branch selection criteria, and increasing the transparency of the selection process. And by becoming the go-to source of information for pubs the new guide can be used to promote CAMRA and encourage both new membership as well as member activation.

By switching the printed Good Beer Guide to regionals, the Campaign will be able to showcase all the good pubs in branches and regions with no limits on entries, and only the good pubs in the region with no padding of numbers to meet self-imposed targets. And the new national guide would be more of an awards list that publicans can truly celebrate being included in.