CAMRA National Pub Of The Year Competition

The Campaign For Real Ale runs the Pub Of The Year (POTY) Competition on a National level via it’s extensive local branch and regional network.

CAMRA branches are invited to submit their nominations to their Regional Director by mid-March 2026. The regional winners are then notified to the National POTY Coordinator by 31st July 2025 by the Regional Director. Super Regional winners are notified to the National POTY Coordinator by 30th September 2026 and go forward to the final round of judging. The National POTY 2025 announcement is then made in January 2026.

Pubs are judged within categories including the 1) Quality and condition of the live beer (real ale), cider and perry; 2) promotion and knowledge of real ale; 3) Cleanliness and staff hygiene; 4) Community Focus; 5) Service and Welcome; 6) Style, Décor, Atmosphere; 7) Sympathy with CAMRA aims; & 8) Overall Impression and Value.

Plymouth CAMRA Pub Of The Year Competitions

With over 470 pubs and clubs in our branch area, both within the large city of Plymouth and the surrounding Devon countryside, we run a City POTY, a Rural POTY, a Cider and Perry POTY competition, as well as a Club Of The Year (COTY) Competition.

The four competitions consist of two phases, and run as follows:

Member Voting Stage

• All Plymouth branch members are contacted via the Branch Comms Tool in late November each year. Members MUST permit email correspondence from Plymouth CAMRA – we are unable to send POTY notification by post. Members can vote for their top three live beer (real ale) pubs, their top cider and perry pub and their top club. Each member has a maximum number of five votes. Only those pubs listed on the branch website Pub Guide are eligible for competition. Voting forms must be returned by Tuesday 30th December 2025.
• Pubs voted first gain three points, second two and third one point in the real ale section. The top-scoring pub in the city area, and the top-scoring pub in the county (rural area) are joined in the Final by the top beer scoring average pubs in the relevant areas to give two pubs for the City and two for the Rural area competitions.
• The top two cider pubs and the top two clubs, as voted by members, go straight to the final of their respective competitions.
• This gives us up to eight POTY/COTY finalists each year: two real ale pubs in the City, two real ale pubs in the Rural area of the branch, two cider and perry pubs and two clubs.

Competition Judging Stage

• The second part is the Judging Stage of the competition. Any Plymouth Branch member can volunteer as a judge. However, judges MUST visit both pubs/clubs in the part(s) of the competition they wish to judge.
• To give our pubs the best possible chances of winning a Regional, or even a National, POTY Award, we use the CAMRA national POTY judging criteria.
• All returned judging forms for each pub are totalled together for each pub, giving an average score for each individual pub/club. Judging forms MUST be returned by 28 February each year.
• The premises with the highest overall judging average score is the Overall Branch Pub Of The Year; the highest average score for the City pub, Rural pub, Cider pub and Club are winners in those sections; the second placed pubs are runners up. With over 470 pubs in our branch area, all are worthy winners!

City pubs are those administered by Plymouth City Council licensing magistrates; the Rural pubs are those administered by South Hams and West Devon District Councils.

The Pub Of The Year - Detailed Guidance is available here.

POTY Voting and Judging Forms

You MUST be a member of Plymouth Branch of CAMRA in order to access and download the forms. Please sign in with your membership number and your password. If you do not know your password, please navigate to the My Membership area within the National CAMRA Members website, or follow this link PASSWORD RESET This is an instant self-service password reset, with no input from CAMRA Head Office staff.

Please click on this link to have access to our Pub Of The Year Voting and Judging Forms – only Plymouth CAMRA branch members can download the actual forms.

Voting Forms

Plymouth CAMRA members can download the Voting Forms for the first phase of the competition here. These will be available in MS Word and Adobe Document formats from 24th November until Tuesday 30th December 2025. You MUST sign in with your CAMRA Membership Number and your password in order to download the forms. Voting forms MUST be returned to either the postal address or be emailed to the address also shown on the form by 1800 on Tuesday 30th December 2025. The eight POTY Finalists will be announced on the official Plymouth CAMRA Facebook Page from early January 2026. Please remember to include your name AND CAMRA membership number for your votes to count; ineligible and/or missing details will be excluded. The Voting and Judging Forms Pub Of The Year Voting and Judging Forms can be downloaded here.

Judging Forms

Judging Forms will be available to download in MS Word and Adobe Document formats from early January 2026 for Plymouth CAMRA members only. Judges do not have to visit all eight pubs in the final; however, judges must visit both pubs in a category for their judging scores to count, i.e. both City pubs or both Rural pubs, etc. Judging will close at 2359 on Saturday 31st January 2026.

City and Rural Pub Of The Year 2025

The pub gaining the highest average score by our judges is, Horse & Groom, Bittaford, congratulations to Dawn, Olly, Pierre and his staff, and to the many customers of the pub!

City POTY 2025

• Winner, The Providence, PL4 8JQ
• Runner Up, Boringdon Arms, PL9 9TQ

Rural POTY 2025

• Winner, Horse & Groom, Bittaford
• Runner Up, Walkhampton Inn, Walkampton

Cider POTY 2025

• Winner Walkhampton Inn, Walkhampton, PL20 6JY
• Runner Up, London Inn, PL7 1NH

Club Of The Year 2025

• Winner Fawn Private Members Club, 39, Prospect Street, Greenbank, Plymouth PL4 8NY

Special Awards 2024

The Branch Committee decided that we would make some special awards to a small number of our branch area pubs for the outstanding services provided by them, as indicated below. We would like to wish all those pubs listed the very best of luck in our annual Pub Of The Year competition and hope that these Awards will give them much-needed publicity during the current difficult trading conditions. This Special Award section will not be done every year, but on the odd occasion when the committtee feel a good pub or club deserve some recognition when missing out in the POTY awards.

Committed To Cask Award 2024

London Inn London Inn, Plympton St Maurice. Joint 1st Place.
Prince Maurice Prince Maurice, Eggbuckland. Joint 1st Place.

Community Pub Of The Year 2024

Providence Inn Providence, Greenbank. 1st Place.

District Pub of the Year 2024

Duchy of Cornwall Duchy of Cornwall, Stonehouse. Joint 1st Place
Lounge Lounge, Devonport. Joint 1st Place.

Previous Branch POTY Winners

Please click here to view our previous POTY Winners Previous Pub Of The Year Winners.