The first 11: Good Beer Guide’s nod to West Berkshire’s finest pubs

They are the first 11: That’s the number of West Berkshire’s entries in the new edition of the Good Beer Guide.

Every year, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) publishes the guide to the venues where people are promised a great pint.

The 2025 edition, which has just gone on sale, uses the fictional Rovers Return in Coronation Street as its cover star to highlight problems the industry faces.

A recent storyline in the soap saw the landlady struggle to keep the pub open, because of Covid lockdowns and the cost-of-living crisis.

CAMRA says this reflects reality, as over the past year more than 1,000 pubs across the country have closed, with some venues converted into housing.

There is some reason to raise your glasses – there are 903 new entries into this year’s guide, of which 12 are from Berkshire, bringing the total number of entries in the guide to 56.

The group’s chairman Ash Corbett-Collins said: “CAMRA’s mission is to ensure support from the Government as well as tangible legislation to protect pubs across each nation of the UK.

“By next year’s edition of the Guide, we want to be talking about the beer and pub trade growing with the support of communities and parliament alike.”

Listings for the West Berkshire venues include details of how to get there, the facilities and the number of real ales customers can expect.

The Good Beer Guide can be bought from shop1.camra.org.uk – and here are some of the West Berkshire pubs it features:

Aldermaston Recreational Society in Reading Road. This sports and social club on the AWE facility is independent of the site and can be entered by the West Gate.

The Bell Inn in Bell Lane, Aldworth recently won CAMRA UK Pub of the Year, and is praised as being a destination pub with an unspoilt, quirky interior and a large beer garden.

The Fox Inn on Hermitage’s High Street is praised as a ‘popular, welcoming village pub’ that dates back to the 16th century, and reminds people it is named after DH Lawrence’s book.

Two Hungerford venues are cited; the Hungerford Club in The Croft and the John O’Gaunt in Bridge Street.

The former is a sports and social club with three cask ales, indoor games, darts and snooker, while the latter is a 16th-century pub that has been sympathetically restored while keeping many original features. It has eight cask ales, and 10 real ciders.

The Catherine Wheel in Cheap Street, Newbury, is praised for being a popular and lively town-centre pub, with local beers on the menu, plus bottled ciders in the fridge. Readers are reminded it has won CAMRA Cider Pub of the Year six times.

Berkshire’s first micropub is The Cow & Cask in Inches Yard, off Market Street. Launched 10 years ago, it has served more than 840 different types of beer since opening.

The Wetherspoon-owned Hatchet Inn, which is in Market Place, earns a mention for its regular cider and beer festival, while The Lion in West Street sees its Tex-Mex menu given the nod.

The Lock, Stock and Barrel in Northbrook Street’s open-plan interior is ‘an attractive setting’, especially on sunny days.