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Explore the UK’s best pubs serving the best real ale, including 50 entries from Bedfordshire.

The Campaign for Real Ale’s Good Beer Guide – the UK’s best-selling beer and pub guide – is celebrating its 52nd edition with not one but two covers featuring two of the UK’s favourite locals: Coronation Street’s Rovers Return Inn, and Emmerdale’s Woolpack. The Guide, which surveys 4,500 of the best pubs across the UK, is the definitive beer drinker’s guide for those seeking the best pints in the nation’s pubs. The Good Beer Guide 2025 is available now from all good bookshops or by mail order from CAMRA, or you can buy one over the counter at Bedford Beer & Cider Festival from Wed 2 to Sat 5 October. Cover price £16.99, CAMRA members £14.99.

The Rovers Return Inn and the Woolpack represent the familiarity and community spirit of pubs across the UK. This edition of the Guide pays tribute to the communities that are beamed into homes, providing entertainment and companionship to those who may not have a local pub. Research commissioned by CAMRA found that people who have a local pub rate themselves as significantly happier because of it, and have more close friends. The pubs on television reflect this feeling. Some of Coronation Street’s and Emmerdale’s most iconic, touching, and memorable moments have occurred in their respective pubs.

The foreword of The Good Beer Guide 2025 is written by BAFTA and multi award-winning Iain MacLeod, ITV’s Executive Producer for Continuing Drama. MacLeod has been Coronation Street’s Series Producer for the last 5 years taking the reins in December 2018. He kept the show on air during the Covid pandemic and throughout his tenure the serial drama has won multiple awards and accolades, celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2020.

The representation of pubs on television is vital in a time when the trade is under significant pressure. CAMRA’s pub closure statistics for 2023 show that 194 pubs were lost forever due to conversion or demolition, including venues like the Crooked House in Himley, and a shocking 1,293 pubs closed their doors to their communities.

This year’s Guide is sponsored by Midland Snacks Traditional Pork Scratchings.