Pub Awards

Each quarter, the branch awards a Pub of the Season (PotS) in both Urban and Rural categories. The eight Pub of the Season winners then make up the shortlist for the branch Pub of the Year (PotY), which is judged in the new year.

Below is the write-up of each presentation, taken from the branch magazine Pints of View, in which it was featured. Please note that all information applies to the date at which it was written and is subject to change. Please check camra.org.uk/pubs for up-to-date information regarding the availability of real ale, opening hours, etc.

The rules of both competitions, previous and current, can be found here.

Previous Winners

2024

Summer 2025 Urban PotS - Barrel Micropub, Mansfield Woodhouse

As one of the first people through the doors on its opening afternoon, and having recently presented them with our Summer Urban Pub of the Season award during their very busy first birthday weekend celebrations, it seemed an appropriate time for Karl to sit down with Mark to find out a bit more about the background to the business, its first year of trading, and their future plans.

Mark takes up the story…

We moved to Mansfield Woodhouse almost ten years ago, and it instantly felt like home. Bev has been in the food and catering industry for her entire working life, including a stint at a chip shop in Woodhouse, and I ran my own café in Warsop for several years, so we both had backgrounds in food and customer service.

In 2023, we began to look for premises for Bev to open a café, but nothing ever really jumped out at us or was in the right location until Station Street, Mansfield Woodhouse, popped up on our radar. In June 2024, we went to look at what we thought was a café space with a storeroom/kitchen and food preparation area to the rear. We excitedly looked around the front and were then shown to the “back room” , which was in a bit of a state – damp, dirty and inhabited entirely by spiders – but we were instantly shocked by the size of the space and its potential functionality – and then we also saw the rear garden. I immediately turned to Bev and declared, “This is a micropub, this is!”

Fast forward eight weeks, and with the help of our tradespeople, the café had taken shape, all put together without any electricity or gas (it’s a long story). The plan was then always to open the café first and the pub once the café was established. Another two weeks rolled by, and we saw no change to the seemingly endless utility issues that we were having, so we turned our attention to getting the pub ready – and believe it or not, it took us, our amazing tradespeople and our friends and family just three weeks to turn the building round and be ready to serve our first pint!

We opened our doors on 4th October 2024, and haven’t looked back – in fact, on the first two weekends we ran out of beer by Saturday night! That said, we’ve also sat on Sunday afternoons in November twiddling our thumbs waiting for people to come in, but, thankfully, those days are long gone – so don’t give up hope!

We saw a summer full of fun and sunshine, with our beer garden full. Fast forward a year…and what a year it’s been! We both really enjoy real ales and craft beers, and have served 361 different beers from 143 breweries – not bad for 147 days of trade! We have our favourite breweries, and we do love a great nano or garage brewer (naming no names) – but one key thing we always look for is variety and making sure that we have a beer on to suit almost all tastes.

Summer 2025 Rural PotS - Market Inn, Huthwaite

Congratulations to the Market Inn, Huthwaite, who are the first two-time winners of our Pub of the Season award...

When we first re-introduced Pub of the Season and Pub of the Year awards in Spring of 2024, Market Inn was the first winner of our Rural award...and they’ve just been successful in the first quarter in which they’ve become eligible again.

I asked landlord Gary how he felt about that achievement, and he was justifiably proud of his business and how it has progressed in the 3 years or so since he took over the premises (a former club) in April 2022, and of having had real ale on the bar from the start.

As the local area hadn’t seen much recent demand for real ales, I asked what prompted him to do that, and his answer was simple: real ales and craft beers are what he enjoys himself. In fact, offering a variety of ales became a selling point that made his venue stand out from his competition.

He admitted it’s been hard work - but he’s persisted, selling a lot of different ales from quite a few different breweries, mainly from Nottinghamshire and the East Midlands. That’s brought a positive reaction from his regular customers too, with some habitual lager drinkers being tempted to try some of the pale ales he’s had on - although they do shy away from the stronger or more hoppy beers he’s had! Other customers have sampled stouts and porters he’s put on too - with Titanic Plum Porter proving particularly popular.

Although the pub sometimes has two real ales on the bar, it’s more commonly only one - but in very good condition - hence them appearing in the last (2025) and current (2026) editions of CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide - which Gary said has also attracted people from outside the area to visit the pub.

To be able to offer constantly-changing ales, some are only bought in pins (36 pints, or four and a half gallons) rather than the more standard 72 pint (9 gallon) firkins, and it’s Gary’s call as to whether he thinks a particular beer will suit his pub and customers - but I think it’s fair to say he’s generally been getting it right so far!

There are some breweries (without naming names) from which pretty much every beer has gone down well with Gary and his customers, so it’s no surprise they feature regularly on the bar.

Congratulations to Gary and his three staff, Kerry, Leela and Sue - and keep up the good work. Cheers!

Read the full feature in the Winter 2025 edition of the branch magazine, Pints of View

Spring 2025 Urban PotS - Scruffy Dog, Sutton-in-Ashfield

Not so shabby for the Scruffy Dog in Sutton-in-Ashfield, as they win the Urban Pub of the Season...

You can be sure of a warm welcome from Jono and Lindsay in this branch brewpub, serving a minimum of four cask ales from the in-house brewery of the same name, while Lindsay’s other half, Stuart, is the man behind the ales.

The brewery, which opened in 2017, can be viewed through a window in the bar area, which also features a large display of motorbike racing memorabilia and signed photos - a passion of the couple. In warmer months, there’s a large beer garden to sit and enjoy a pint, some of which is covered by a canopy.

The cask choices rotate from the many brews that come out of the brewery. All dog-themed, you might see ‘Sit. Stay’ - a premium pale, or ‘Dog Tired’ - a pale with New Zealand hops. ‘BDM’ is a cracking dry stout, while two iterations of ‘Dogtor Evil’s Milk Stout’, at the sweeter end of the scale, have been wonderful when available. A recent addition to the bar is ‘Mango Milkshake IPA’, which started life at 9.6% but has been reigned in to 5.9% and tasted great on the warm, sunny afternoon of our social and presentation. The pub has been a Good Beer Guide mainstay since 2017, so you can be sure of a decent pint.

Some of Stuart’s beer makes it into keg form too, including a house lager, amusingly named ‘Paw Etty’ (Poretti), and it’s very good indeed. There’s some malt backbone, setting it aside from the bland mainstream lager offerings, but it remains light and refreshing.

Ale isn’t the only thing made in-house, as the pub serves pizza fresh from the kitchen, which can be ordered to eat in or take away. 10 different toppings are available, so there should be something to suit all tastes.

The pub is a 15-minute walk from Sutton town centre, or TrentBarton operates three buses that stop outside the pub - the 3C, 33, and 90 - making it easy to access from both inside and various locations outside the branch.

So, if you feel like it’s ‘Ground Dog Day’, why not have a ‘Pooch Mooch’ over, ‘Sit. Stay’ for a while, and before you’re ‘Doggone’, you might say ‘Oh My Dog’ and ‘Puppy Love’ the place... I’ll get my coat!

Spring 2025 Rural PotS - Dixies Arms, Bagthorpe

Unlike the piece on our Urban winners, I won’t ‘pun-ish’ you whilst writing about Dixies Arms at Lower Bagthorpe; the deserving winners of our Rural Pub of the Season award...

The two main rooms inside, run by Ian and Laura, this cosy village pub goes above and beyond to cater to locals and visitors alike, with live music every Saturday and a weekly quiz every Sunday, plus monthly events including open mic nights, an acoustic folk club, a classic car night and a motorcycle night.

Inside, two main rooms are divided by the entrance corridor, which leads to the bar, with a further small seating area to the right of the bar. There are three handpulls, usually with a mix of local and national cask ales, alongside draught beers and cider. There’s a terrace seating area with tables and umbrellas in front of the pub, and a car park to the side.

I took the 33 bus from Sutton, getting off by Underwood Institute (Stop D), then cut alongside the Ginger Giraffe pub and along Church Lane, passing the Red Lion, to emerge opposite Dixies. That was a deliberate tactic on a very warm day - downhill all the way - and I was ready for a pint after the walk, opting initially for ‘Crackendale’ 5.2% single-hopped (Citra) pale ale from Thornbridge, which I have to say really hit the spot.

I’d arranged to present the award during their annual ‘Bagfest’ Folk, Americana and Country Music festival, which includes a beer and cider festival with on-site food vendors too, and the pub was already busy with a queue stretching outside from the bar when I arrived at around 2.15 pm, but I was able to get a seat with some branch members who had already secured a table.

For Bagfest, an extra room in the pub was opened up, from which a further 8 ales and an assortment of ciders were served, direct from casks and boxes respectively, so there was plenty of choice - but it was cash only as there was no till in the room.

Also, the car park was given over to food vendors and the performance area, and I hadn’t realised I’d be presenting the award between acts and speaking on the microphone, but I think that went well enough, and receipt of the award was greeted by cheers and applause from the watching crowd. Definitely a great event - and I’m already looking forward to next year, hoping the weather is as kind again.

Read the full feature in the Autumn 2025 edition of the branch magazine, Pints of View

Branch Pub of the Year 2025

Firerock Brewing Co., Sutton in Ashfield

FireRock Brewing Co. has been on a roll this last few months...

Not only did they scoop Discover Ashfield’s ‘Business of the Year’ and have the highest average rating in the UK for two of their beers on Untappd, but they were also announced as Mansfield & Ashfield CAMRA Pub of the Year back in March.

The FireRock team are Danny and Amy Hallam alongside Neil and Gemma Beaver, with friends and family supplementing the lineup when things get a little hectic with festivals and such. The pub, located on Outram Street in Sutton-in-Ashfield, opened in December 2018, with instant following from discerning drinkers who appreciated the eclectic range and quality of the beers, rarely seen in the branch beforehand.

When I first encountered the pub back in 2018, I was stunned that Sutton could have a pub which, up to that point, you’d only expect to see in a city centre, and little has changed in that respect.