** NOTE THAT THIS IS THE START OF THE 2025 ROUND OF PUB OF THE YEAR. WE ARE 2024 NATIONAL PUB OF THE YEAR UNTIL JANUARY 2026**
The Shrewsbury and West Shropshire Branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), the organisation which fights for traditional beer, cider and pubs, today announced the winners of the 2025 Pubs and Clubs of the Year Competition for Shrewsbury and West Shropshire. The overall big winner is The Bailey Head.
The West Shropshire area has 240 pubs and clubs selling real ale. In the first stage of the Pub of the Year competition, Branch members visit pubs and score the beer quality. Members then vote on the overall experience in these pubs to produce a shortlist of pubs – three in Shrewsbury, three in West Shropshire market towns and four from rural West Shropshire.
Shortlisted pubs are visited anonymously by experienced surveyors who mark the pub on beer quality and knowledge, cleanliness, commitment to the community and CAMRA, and service and overall experience using a nationally agreed scheme. This year’s competition was again finely balanced, with all the finalists within only a few marks of each other. The Branch overall winner goes on to compete with pubs across the country to win CAMRA’s Pub of the Year for the whole of the UK.
A parallel process takes place to find the Branch Cider Pub of The Year, and the Bailey Head also came out top in that competition.
Competition co-ordinator Norrie Porter said “The Bailey Head, which was declared CAMRA’s Regional Cider Pub of The Year and overall National Pub of The Year for 2024, really is an exceptional pub, offering great quality to a well-formed local community but also attracting many visitors to the town”.
Owners Grace Goodlad and Duncan Borrowman said “It is amazing to have won the Shrewsbury & West Shropshire Pub of the Year and Cider Pub of the Year awards again. It is an incredibly tough competition with almost 250 venues in an area with many superb pubs. I am incredibly grateful to our wonderful team, fabulous regulars and the people of Oswestry for their fantastic support”