CAMRA Good Beer Guide 2023: The 10 best pubs in Milton Keynes are named

The Campaign for Real Ale’s (CAMRA) Good Beer Guide – the UK’s best-selling beer and pub guide – has named 10 pubs in Milton Keynes.

They include two local Wetherspoon pubs two clubs and one country pub that has been listed for the past 22 years.

The famous guide is celebrating its 51st edition with a foreword supplied by Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson.

It surveys 4,500 of the best pubs across the UK and is the definitive beer drinker’s guide for those seeking the best pints in the nation’s pubs.

Dickinson’s foreword shines a spotlight on the cultural tradition of pubs within the United Kingdom, the importance of protecting the heritage, charm and welcoming nature of pubs and clubs, and not taking them for granted.

The Good Beer Guide, published annually by CAMRA, helps beer lovers take a barometer of the local beer scene. As well as covering 175 of the very best pubs across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, it keeps track of brewery numbers, and notes a net gain of one brewery across the counties.

The story is not the same across the UK however, as although the guide records 82 new breweries, 142 have closed.

This net loss of 60 breweries is a worrying reminder that a lack of support from the government means dire consequences for local businesses, in the wake of a cost-of-business crisis and the constant pressure of fuel bills,” said a CAMRA spokesperson.

This year’s guide contains 910 newly featured pubs, which is a fantastic prospect for the pub trade which has been struggling to stay afloat in recent years following the pandemic and rising fuel costs. The trade also faces an impending threat from unlawful demolitions, which CAMRA has declared a ‘national scandal’ in the wake of the demolition of the Crooked House in Himley.

CAMRA Chairman Nik Antona said: “The last few years have been an incredibly difficult time for the industry, and we need more support than ever before to keep our nation’s pubs and breweries open and thriving. I’d encourage everyone to use this year’s Guide to visit the very best pubs and breweries across the UK and support them for generations to come.”

The Good Beer Guide, which reviews over 4,500 pubs across the UK, and is compiled by thousands of independent volunteers. It can be ordered here.

The Milton Keynes pubs mentioned in the guide are:

The Ship Ashore at Willen

Station Tavern in Woburn Sands

Lamb in Stoke Goldington, which has featured in the Guide for 22 consecutive years, winning many CAMRA awards, including local Pub of the Year several times.

Club Hanslope, originally opened as a working mens club in 1898, but now open to all

Stony Stratford Conservative Club

The Victoria Inn in Bradwell Village

Wetherspoons Captain Ridley’s shooting party in Bletchley

Wetherspoons at Midsummer Boulevard in Central Milton Keynes

Ousebank House in Newport Pagnell, formerly the British Legion Club, now a community owned pub

The Cock Inn in Stony Stratford

The city’s Bucks Star micro brewery in Stonebridge is also mentioned in the CAMRA guide, as is the Blackened Sun on Stacey Bushes, which is a solar powered brewery.