Oxford CAMRA:
Good Beer Guide Selection and the National Beer Scoring System

There has been a debate in the Oxford branch recently about the short-comings of our traditional methods used for surveying and selecting for entries for the Good Beer Guide. Historically we have discussed pubs at branch meetings, and then held a vote of the members attending the branch meeting in February or March. Selection was by a process called "approval voting"; we worked through the short-list and asked for a show of hands for each pub in turn. Members could cast a positive vote for as many pubs as they liked, and voting for a pub indicated that the member knew from personal experience that it consistently served good quality beer. This approach worked well in terms of selecting good pubs which were well known to the active membership. If the selection meeting is attended by 20 people we could be highly confident that a pub which got 18 or 19 enthusiastic votes belonged in the Guide. It worked much less well at comparing quality further down the list. We failed to distinguish between a well-visited pub which only 5 people thought worthy, and a pub which had been visited by only 5 active members and favourably impressed all of them.

The selection bias in favour of "well known" pubs is made more serious by the scale of the surveying task. The branch covers a large area: as well as Oxford itself we take in Kidlington, Otmoor, Wheatley, Abingdon, Witney, Bampton, Clanfield, Carterton, and their surroundings - as far as the M40 in the east and the Gloucestershire border in the west. There are about 300 pubs in this area, with a roughly 50/50 split between "in Oxford" and "outside Oxford". There are some 500 CAMRA members in the branch area, but only about 15 or 20 active members who attend branch meetings or social events, and the majority of the active members are Oxford based. We need help from the membership at large, both to identify good pubs that we may be overlooking and to provide more "year round" beer quality information for pubs that the active membership visit infrequently.

To address these problems the branch have decided to adopt CAMRA's National Beer Scoring System (NBSS) as the basis of our shortlisting and selection for the 2009 edition of the Good Beer Guide (to be published September 2008, following selection by branches in February 2008), and we want to encourage all CAMRA members who drink in the branch area to get involved in scoring the pubs that they visit and drink in.

The idea behind NBSS is simple: we just want you got give us your honest views of the beers that you try in the pubs that you visit. Whenever you visit a pub, give the beers that you drink a score on a six point scale (0-5) and make a brief note on a score card:

Send us the scores and we will use them to compile a "league table" showing how good and how consistent the beer is in the pubs covered by the branch. You don't need to be a beer tasting expert to take part. The scoring system is easily understood and non-technical - printed on the back of the cards is a handy guide to how the 0 to 5 scale is supposed to be used, with meaningful examples that should make sense to any regular beer drinker:

0. Undrinkable. No cask ale available or so poor you have to take it back or can't finish it.

1. Poor. Beer that is anything from barely drinkable to drinkable with considerable resentment.

2. Average. Competently kept, drinkable pint but doesn't inspire in any way, not worth moving to another pub but you drink the beer without really noticing.

3. Good. Good beer in good form. You may cancel plans to move to the next pub. You want to stay for another pint and may seek out the beer again.

4. Very good. Excellent beer in excellent condition.

5. Perfect. Probably the best you are ever likely to find. A seasoned drinker will award this score very rarely.

What should you be looking for in a pint? The great thing about real ale is the diversity of tastes. With over 2000 different real ales to choose from everyone has their own personal favourites (and things that they don't like!), so please try give an honest account of how well kept a particular beer is. Don't give a pint 5 just because it is (say) London Pride and you happen to like London Pride, and don't give a pint 0 because it is a stout and you happen to hate stouts. Most people can tell the difference between a beer that just happens to have a flavour that "isn't for them" and a beer with actual defects (cloudy, flat, sour, chemical tastes, too warm, too cold, etc), but if you aren't sure then try to do your scoring based on beers that you know that you normally like when they are good condition. Here are a few things to take note of when evaluating a beer:

Look: Assess the colour, clarity and foam of the pint. Golden ales should appear bright and clear while darker beers, such as stouts and porters, posses a richer colour and often a thick, creamy head. As a general rule of thumb it is best to base your view on whether it looks appealing.

Smell: Smell is an important part of the drinking experience. Take a short sniff of your drink to assess the aroma.

Taste: Take a sip and let it flow around your mouth before swallowing. Beers can reflect all taste sensations including sweet, sour, salty and bitter. The intensity of the flavours and the finish make up the whole taste1. Give your taste buds a few seconds to register all the differing sensations.

CAMRA members can get a supply of NBSS cards from several different sources. You can download a PDF from the Members Area of the CAMRA web site and print your own, you can request them from the local branch, or from CAMRA HQ. You can also submit scores over the Internet, using Oxford CAMRA Pub Database or CAMRA's national beer scoring web site.

If you are an interested ale drinker but are not a CAMRA member then why not get involved in the battle to protect real ale and pubs? A CAMRA membership application form can be found at the back of the magazine.