Places Features

If you want to make money, and enjoy yourself at the same time, write ‘A Guide to Staffordshire’s 100 Best Pubs’.  According to my local bookshop, there simply isn’t one, and they are always being asked if there is one.

It's also a critical time for pubs, as they close at a rate of knots. If you see our Photos of Pubs gallery, there's a few there that we reached too late...
Have a look at our gallery, and at our video of Rob Cocker, the man who is trying to list all the pubs in north Staffordshire, even as many of them start to disappear:-

It is a crying shame that there is no good guide, particularly as so many great pubs are closing forever all the time.
Without a guide, who would know that amazing little heritage pubs still exist in the back streets of our cities and villages? 
Pubs like the Coachmakers' Arms in Hanley (currently under threat of demolition), and the unsung Red Lion in Rugeley (one of only three Heritage pubs in the county). 
So - if you have time, and a good stomach for ale, why not write such a guide yourself?

In the meantime, the annual CAMRA Good Beer Guide is the next best bet. It looks at the whole of the UK of course, but also lists over fifty pubs across Staffordshire, rating them first and foremost (obviously) for their real ales, but also for their facilities and even their policy on noise - a big ‘Q’ rating means a pub has a policy of no music & no TV ( thankfully!).

Best pubs

However, it’s hard to believe that there is no other selective guide to the county’s 'best pubs'.
And what I mean by a best pub is a good, old-fashioned, traditional, welcoming pub. I’ll also allow pubs with great views, or pubs that simply have that great feel-good factor that makes you want to spend a whole Sunday afternoon just lazing in there warming a pint.

The CAMRA guide is fine, but because it concentrates on availability of ‘high-quality’ beer, it ignores some of the really pleasant pubs that don’t quite meet its stringent beer standards.

The CAMRA guide does mention some of Staffordshire’s greatest - the Old Brown Jug (Newcastle), the homely Burton Bridge Inn, and the strangely sited Codsall Station in Codsall.  The information supplied is terrific, and includes little pieces of trivia on each hostelry as well as a thumbnail sketch of the facilities and ambience.
And, to be fair, CAMRA does recognise the need to save some heritage pubs (see links below).

But it does not mention some of my other top pubs...

Yew Tree Inn

Choice ale houses

What about the remote Black Lion at Consall, the (extraordinary) Yew Tree at Cauldon Low, and the Traveller’s Rest high on the moors at Flash.
Then there's the The Whittington Inn (where the ghost of Lady Jane Grey is rumoured to walk) and indeed all the pubs that serve that strange brew made in Chasewater – Beowulf?
None of these is in the CAMRA 2009 Good Beer guide.

According to the 2009 CAMRA guide, there is not a top pub in Cheadle, Longnor, Wombourne, Alton or Rugeley. Hard to believe.

Nor does it think there is one in Cheddleton!  Now, when you think of the great canal-side Holly Bush pub, The Boat Inn, the Red Lion – all in or near Cheddleton – then the district is a pubber’s paradise. But Cheddleton gets no mention.

Now I don’t blame the CAMRA Guide; after all, it has its job to do; it rates pubs primarily on real ale. But we pub-lovers need a different list.

Your favourite

So... here’s a project for us dedicated traditional pubbers: to find the best pubs in Staffordshire - whether poor or rich, countryside or urban, rated by CAMRA or not rated by CAMRA.

What we’d like is if you just list your suggestions on what are the top pubs in the county, and why, on the comments form further down the page.  We’ll publish the full list as it grows.

I would say, as a minimum, a Great Local Pub should have - a bit of heritage, decent ale, a welcoming atmosphere for regulars, something different about it (maybe a real fire, or quirky furniture, or weird location), warmth, snugness, and at least an attempt at interior decor (some pubs just don't make it, because of the terrible 1970s decor that's just been left there to fester!).
So - tell us your favourites, and why.

(By the way, in my opinion, all the other internet guides are useless. They just allow anyone to comment, and they just become a lot of noise.  If you do know however of a good internet guide, tell us of it using the same form).

More pub links...

In 2007, BBC Radio Stoke's Terry Walsh uncovered the histories of local watering holes in a bid to find the oldest pub in North Staffordshire. See weblink below.

Plus, to find out more about the annual CAMRA Good Beer Guide, visit the website by clicking the following link: