How we review

The visit

I turn up unannounced, as an ordinary customer, and I pay at the bar like everyone else. There is no press visit, no arrangement with the landlord and no free round. Staff do not know they are being written about, which is the only way to see a pub as it actually is on a normal evening.

I drink at least one thing that tells me something: a cask ale where the cellar work shows, or whatever the pub is clearly proud of. If there is a kitchen, I eat. I sit somewhere I can see how the room works, and I stay long enough for the place to stop performing, which is usually about an hour.

Notes get written on the spot and written up soon after, while the detail is fresh. A photograph or two goes with them, taken on the day, which is why the pictures on this site are sometimes imperfect rather than glossy.

What gets judged

The same things every time, so the reviews can be compared: how the beer is kept and served, what the food is like if there is any, how the room feels and sounds, how the staff treat a stranger, and whether the practical things people ask about are true. The amenity list on each pub page records that last part, and it is checked on the visit rather than copied from the pub's own website.

A pub is judged as the pub it is trying to be. A back street local is not marked down for having no kitchen, and a smart dining pub is not praised for a good pint alone. What matters is whether the place does its own job well.

Independence

There is no advertising on this site, no affiliate links, no sponsored posts and no paid placement. Nothing on any page earns money if you click it. No pub, brewery, pubco or tourist board has any say in what appears here or how it is worded.

Free drinks and free meals are declined. If a pub works out mid-visit what is going on and offers something on the house, it gets paid for anyway or it does not get drunk. The one thing a pub can do to get a good write up is be a good pub.

The reviews here are written as a hobby rather than as a commercial guide. That is worth being honest about: there are fewer of them than a large guide would carry, and they reflect a particular taste rather than a committee average.

Corrections and disagreements

Pubs change. Landlords move on, kitchens close, a cellar that was immaculate in March might not be in October. If a review is out of date, tell meand I will go back or mark the page accordingly. Factual errors get fixed as soon as I know about them, and a page that has changed meaningfully gets an updated date.

If a pub disagrees with a review, I will read what they have to say and I will reply. Where they are right about a fact, the page gets corrected. Where it is a matter of opinion, the review stands: a bad night is still a bad night, and softening it would make every other page on the site worth less. Reviews are not removed because somebody would rather they were not there.