Pub of the Season (PotS)

Beer scores recorded via WhatPub / Good Beer Guide web apps to the National Beer Scoring System (NBSS) for the 3-month periods below will determine venues shortlisted for PotS, with the five highest averages qualifying. Scores registered via Untappd do not go into the NBSS.

- Spring – February to April scores.
- Summer – May to July scores.
- Autumn – August to October scores.
- Winter – November to January scores.

The committee reviews NBSS data in detail to exclude scenarios such as a single member repeatedly scoring exceptionally highly, or one venue highly and all others poorly or not at all, and scores from family members of licensees for their premises and employees voting for their workplaces.

For each PotS period, the committee will produce Urban and Rural shortlists (with Kirkby, Mansfield, Mansfield Woodhouse, South Normanton and Sutton making up the Urban category). Those shortlists will be put to a member vote in a 10-day window in the month after the end of the season, to be advertised via a Comms email, on our website and social media.

Voters must record their name and membership number to validate against membership records, and votes may only be cast for venues a voter has visited and for which they have scored one or more beers in that season. You can only select one venue for each category.

Results will be announced in the following month unless there is no clear and deserving recipient identified in a season, in which case the committee may choose not to make an award. We will then present certificates to winners, seeking permission to take and share pictures, with quarterly presentations also potentially being combined into our programme of branch socials.

If a venue wins a PotS, they cannot be nominated again in the next four seasons.

Pub of the Year (PotY)

PotY will also follow the urban and rural split – where each shortlist will comprise the 4 PotS winners for those 12 months unless there have been significant changes such as closure or a change in either ownership or standards since winning. If an in-year PotS venue becomes ineligible for that year’s PotY, we may choose to shortlist the runner-up for the period in which the ineligible venue won (if the substitute hasn’t since won in a subsequent season that year) or to reduce the PotY shortlist for that category.

The PotY shortlist will NOT go forward to a member vote. Instead, all shortlisted venues will be visited and assessed against CAMRA’s national judging criteria, as used at county PotY level, with judging undertaken by experienced members of our own and other branches – preferable since the latter should not have ‘favourite pub’ conscious or unconscious bias.