THE Castle Pub in Cold Ash is celebrating winning the 2010 West Berkshire CAMRA Community Pub award.
In choosing the Castle as the winner of the Best Community Pub award, West Berkshire CAMRA noted that it formed an important community hub as well as hosting regular charity fundraising activities.
Landlord of the Cold Ash Hill pub, Nick Hex, said that even though he nominated the pub himself he knew that some of his customers had nominated it as well.
Mr Hex and his wife Maggie have run the pub for the past 15 years.
He said: "We are absolutely over the moon about it, we are chuffed.
"It's not just down to me, it is down to a lot of people who use the pub.
"There is a nice sense of community here.
"Lots of people know each other, support each other and help each other."
The pub does a regular Friday night charity meat raffle with £2,800 raised last year and the Christmas raffle which raised more than £500.
The charities supported include Naomi House, London to Brighton British Heart Foundation Cycle ride and the Newbury and District talking newspaper.
It also supports Cold Ash Cricket Club and acts as a club house for the team after matches.
Adrian Bean chairman of West Berkshire CAMRA said: "One of the things that particularly struck me was the avalanche of nominations for the Castle.
"They all picked on a number of similar themes, with various differences due to involvement the person had with the Castle.
"It was good to see all the support that the pub had given the cricket team over the years, how people took the time to recommend the food supplied by the pub and the fact that pub does so much for the local community – be that providing a platform for youngsters to play live music, the welcome for people with dogs or the support for numerous charities."
This is the third year of the award, which is nominated by pub-goers and publicans from the West Berkshire area.
Previous winners include the Fox and Hounds, Donnington and the Ibex, Chaddleworth.
West Berkshire CAMRA will present the award to the pub on Tuesday, February 23 at 8pm and all are welcome to attend.