County Stat Attack Week 21 - Gloucestershire

Into the South West for this week with Gloucestershire and Bristol (for any pedants out there). It is a border county with South Wales and many English counties. For our purposes the county includes the Unitary Authority of Bristol which came into being when the county of Avon ceased to Exist. Most of current Gloucestershire is from Anglo Saxon England however there was considerable Roman occupation before then, leaving many sites of antiquity.
The county town is Gloucester but the major city is obviously Bristol. The next largest are Cheltenham, Filton, Stroud, Yate, Cirencester and Tewkesbury. Many of these having a reasonable presence on Ratebeer. The county is split into 3 geographical areas with The Cotswold Hills, The Forest of Dean and the Severn Valley connecting them.

On Ratebeer we have a total of 86 Breweries with 64 Active and 22 now sadly closed. There are 11 Client / Commissioner Breweries.

The oldest Brewery we are showing is Donnington Brewery of Stow on the Wold (Est 1865), probably the most beautifully set Brewery in the world (imo). Set in a 13th Century Mill, bought by Thomas Arkell with Richard Arkell setting up the Brewery in 1865, they would never get away with that now!. It has been in the same family, who also brew in Swindon as Arkells, since it was established. The Mill Wheel is still in use to drive some of the pumps and machinery in the brewery. They own 18 very traditional tied houses where a majority of their beer is consumed.
The Brewery in the county with the largest range is Arbor of Bristol (Est 2007) with 360 beers listed.

On the Ratebeer Best awards for 2020 Arbor also won Brewer of the year for Gloucestershire. Best Beer was Deya Something Good 5 and the New Brewery Award was made to LHG Brewpub.

The Top 10 Beers on Ratebeer for Gloucestershire are –

  1. Deya Something Good 5
  2. Arbor / Moor Double Dark Alliance
  3. Deya Saturated in Strata
  4. Deya Saturated in Citra
  5. Arbor FF #21 – Impy Stout R
  6. Deya Routine Bites Hard
  7. Deya Saturated in Nelson
  8. Deya / Other Half My Life in Sunshine R
  9. Deya Sunshine
  10. Freeminer Deep Shaft Stout R

The Top Pubs / Bars in Gloucestershire are –

  1. Small Bar, Bristol – 97
  2. Beer Emporium, Bristol – 92
  3. Barley Mow (Bristol Beer Factory), Bristol, St Phillips – 91
  4. Brewdog Bristol – 90
  5. Three Tuns, Bristol – 90
  6. Sandford Park Alehouse, Cheltenham – 90
  7. Famous Royal Navy Volunteer, Bristol – 90
    (3 of these are within 100m in one street!)

There is also a very highly rated bottle shop in the area –

  1. Favourite Beers, Cheltenham – 95

The Top 5 Raters of beers from Gloucestershire are –

  1. @downender
  2. @imdownthepub
  3. @Leighton
  4. @madmitch76
  5. @fonefan

You will require a very healthy 153 beers to get into the Top 50 for Gloucestershire.

The Rater who resides in Gloucestershire with the most ratings is –
@downender who happily is currently rating with us.

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Fond of Gloucestershire.

I had a mate who lived between Gloucester and Cheltenham, he worked at GCHQ (He’s called ‘Jimmy The Spy’), used to stay with him regularly for weekends; Grimsby Town at Cheltenham/Bristol City/Bristol Rovers and the excellent Cotswold Beer Festivals held in the Postlip Hall Tithe Barn being the usual reasons. I was therefore surprised I have only reviewed 5 places and rated just 154 beers from the county.

Those 154 rates allow me to be 48th in the county pecking order. 33 breweries sampled, 2 cideries.

Top Beers:
Bath Gem (cask)
Bath Dark Side
Moor Fusion 2012

Top Breweries:
Bristol Beer Factory on 19.
Arbor on 14
Bath and Moor, both on 13.

Moor @3.37, then Warwick Wessex just behind for the highest scoring breweries.

My only visits to the county since my friend moved away have been stops at the most expensive Motorway Service Station in the UK when travelling up and down to Devon to see my parents. Never buy fuel there, but pick up stupidly priced beers, while looking at the bread and meal prices within the deli/shop area near the beers. Toilets and dog walking area are free! https://www.ratebeer.com/p/gloucester-services-farm-shop/47831/

EDIT Bit: Been to Nailsworth four times to watch us play Forest Green Villagers, I thought it was in ‘Middle Earth’ but apparently it’s in Gloucestershire.

<*))))))><

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Yes, we occasionally stop at Gloucester Services, nice break after towing over the top of the Cotswolds on the way down south. I haven’t managed to pick up anything new on the beer front from there for a while. The benches out the front are quite pleasant though, you can keep an eye on the caravan while having a cheeky sarnie and give the dog a break.

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Donnington Brewery, nr Stow on the Wold
Donnington Brewery

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It’s been a while for a bordering county to come round and one that I visit regularly. We have had weeks away in Bristol every year for the last 10 years plus we love visiting the whole of the county, Cheltenham, Cirencester and Moreton in Marsh in particular. The Moreton in Marsh Beer Festival is also a favourite on the cricket grounds at the edge of the town with the Caravan Club Site just a short walk away.
Over the years I must have done just about every long distance walk going in the county, the obvious one being the Cotswold Way, which runs, or more appropriately meanders the length of the county. Sporting wise I’ve watched Gloucestershire vs Lancashire at Moreton in Marsh Cricket Ground and several games at Ashton Gate where we never seem to lose when I’ve been.

Bristol has to be a candidate for best beer city in the UK, its well up there, plus Cheltenham is a great day out too. Not much going on in Gloucester imo or Cirencester, Stroud is good though.

Getting into my stats, I am currently in 2nd place with a total of 695 beers for Gloucestershire, a long way behind @downender but it is the 4th highest county for me in number of beers with a reasonable average of 3.29. I am also 3rd in the number of Breweries chart with 65.

The Breweries I have had most beers from are –

  1. Arbor Ales – 66
  2. Bristol Beer Factory – 43
  3. Moor Beer Co. – 42
  4. Wiper and True – 33
  5. Beerd – 25
  6. Gloucester Brewery – 25

I have given 25 beers a score of 4 or over, the best being –

  1. Left Handed Giant / Stillwater Dot Matrix – 4.3
  2. Freeminer Speculation Ale – 4.2
  3. Stanway Stanney Bitter – 4.2
  4. Stroud Budding – 4.2
  5. Bristol Beer Factory Southville Hop – 4.2

Remarkably I have only had 2 of the top 10 beers for the county, must dig out some of the others by the looks.

My Highest Rated Breweries for Gloucestershire are –

  1. Stanway Brewery (now sadly closed) – 3.68
  2. Deya Brewing – 3.667
  3. Moor Brewing Co. – 3.588
  4. Arbor Ales – 3.539
  5. Halfpenny Brewery – 3.513
    I have reviewed 118 separate places in Gloucestershire making it my 2nd highest county in that regard. My best are –
  6. Small Bar, Bristol – 88
  7. Cornubia, Bristol – 86
  8. Three Tuns, Bristol – 84
  9. Barley Mow (Bristol Beer Factory) – 84
  10. Sandford Park Alehouse, Cheltenham – 82

Overall I would thoroughly recommend an extended visit to Gloucestershire for a beery holiday, you can’t go wrong, particularly with Brizzle.

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Finally, my home county :slight_smile:

491 rates here making it my second highest, only beaten by Greater Manchester (all those Cloudwater and Track beers really add up). This puts me comfortably in 10th place.

I live in Bishop’s Cleeve and have done for the majority of my life, it’s on the outskirts of Cheltenham so this effectively means Deya is my local.
Compared to most people on the forums I’m a newcomer to the beer scene, but coincidentally Deya began their rise to prominence right around the time I started seriously getting into craft beer, so aside from their now-retired early releases I’ve had almost every beer they’ve brewed (175 / 189). They’re definitely one of my favourite British breweries, largely due to their excellence at the hazy NE style Pales/IPAs/DIPAs which I love.
This is reflected in my top 10 beers for the county:

  1. Deya / Other Half My Life In The Sunshine
  2. Deya / Glasshouse Momentary Bliss
  3. Deya Sunshine
  4. Deya Saturated In Nelson
  5. Moor Old Freddy Walker
  6. Deya Steady Rolling Man 2016-
  7. Deya Saturated In Citra
  8. Deya Steady Rolling Strata
  9. Deya Big Hop Pillow
  10. Deya Right Brain Feeds the Left Brain

My top rated breweries are:

  1. Deya
  2. Left Handed Giant
  3. Arbor
  4. Moor
  5. Wiper & True
  6. Lost & Grounded

I agree with Glen that Bristol must be one of the top beer cities in the UK now with a very high concentration of quality breweries and bars. It has the annual BCBF and East Bristol Brewery Trail too. It should certainly be a go-to destination in England for any beer drinker, I think we can rank it up there with the likes of London, Manchester, and various parts of Yorkshire, can’t we?

Cheltenham is also worth a visit for sure. A highlight would be Deya, of course. They’re ready to open their new taproom next week. It’s been open for can takeaways for months so I can tell you already it’s a big improvement over the old one. Sandford Park Alehouse is the other main attraction, an excellent pub.
As pointed out in the original post we have the very highly regarded Favourite Beers bottleshop - always an excellent selection there. We have another, newer bottleshop called Bath Road Beers, not quite at the same level as FB, but the guys who run it seem to have the passion necessary to keep it operating successfully, and the selection there is decent with plenty of local options. They do have one advantage over FB in that they have an online shop and do nationwide delivery. If you’re after more Gloucestershire rates but can’t make it here they might be worth checking out, particularly if you want non-Bristol stuff.

Gloucester is indeed a beer desert considering it’s the county city; I wouldn’t recommend making a special journey there. If you do happen to be visiting or passing through the Docks, then the namesake Gloucester Brewery and their restaurant TANK is located there and the only real beery place of interest. Brewhouse and Kitchen also have one of their brewpubs right round the corner from TANK if you want a few more mediocre ticks.

Now then… where did I put my plans to get Bristol removed from Gloucestershire on Ratebeer and made into its own county… :smiling_imp:

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Completely missed out the Cotswolds from my post! It really is an incredibly beautiful area of the UK isn’t it. Though Donnington specifically (well, real ale in general) aren’t really my style, you cannot fault the area they’re in.

Another brewery perhaps worth a mention a little further south of Stow on the Wold, and one for any fans of lager styles here, is Cotswold Brew Co. The brewery itself isn’t in an interesting spot as it’s just off an A road. However, it’s situated just outside of Bourton-on-the-Water which is a beautiful little village (extremely tourist heavy in the summer months, mind). The equally lovely villages of Upper and Lower Slaughter are also very close by in the opposite direction. You can easily make a day out of it there.

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My company used to have its HQ in Cheltenham, although the one time I stayed the night there we just went to Pizza Express and then the bar of the country house hotel we were staying. I just remember my room being so cold that ended up getting dressed again, coat and all, before getting back into bed. Otherwise I think I’ve only passed through the county on the way to other places.

I have 77 beers from 16 breweries (plus two from Mills which are therefore 750ml bottles, a format of which I always take ages to get around to drinking).

Top Rated Beers:

• Mills Picture Pot @ 3.9
• Moor Dead Punk All Dayer @ 3.8
• Mills Running Beer @ 3.8
• Deya Break Me Into Bigger Pieces @ 3.8
• Mills Today @ 3.8

Breweries:
• Moor – 17
• Lost and Grounded – 12
• Deya – 9
• LHG – 8
• Arbor/ Mills – 5
• Wiper and True – 4
• Bristol BF / New Bristol – 3
• Bath / Cotswold / Goffs / LHG Brewpub – 2
• Gloucester / Good Chemistry / Hillside 1

If it wasn’t for lockdown I guess I would have had more beers from the likes of Deya and Moor. i.e. breweries I will buy a third of in a bar but not ones I will look to order online.

Gloucester is also a county that let me down for Protz 300 ticks. I never got hold of the two Freeminer beers before they ceased brewing… although at least one is now brewed by Enefeld. I also e-mailed Uley to ask if their beers were available bottled and received an angry e-mail with RANDOM words in CAPITALS telling me their PROPER beer was only available in CASK and how dare I query this.

One of my local farm shops, Secretts in Milford, revamped it’s beer selection and now advertises over ‘100 Artisan Craft Beers’. For some reason a significant proportion are from Gloucestershire breweries (Stroud, Cotswold, Hillside, Gloucester, Beerd, etc). I keep thinking of picking up some to boost my Gloucestershire numbers.

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Funnily enough the company I used to work for had their UK headquarters in Cheltenham. I used to be quite a regular visitor, at least once a month, but at that time it was a bit of a beer desert, in the centre at least. I did do the odd stop on the way home though :grinning:

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7th on the list for me, with 197 rates from just 17 brewers. Mills account for the top 11 and they account for 18 out of my top 22. It’s fair to say I’m a big fan of Mills. Only one brewer rates higher for me overall, on RB.

I chased Deya at the start, too, but basically ignore them completely now, as I reckon the quality has dipped dramatically lately (sorry, Chris!).

Visited on many occasions, including on honeymoon in 2000 (staying in Painswick). I have fond memories of drinking pints of Uley Old Spot at the Woolpack in Slad and also at the Butcher’s Arms at Sheepscombe. Latest trip down was last October, to drink Mills Nicky on tap at Favourite Beers, which was a hugely enjoyable visit.

Yet to do Bristol (for beer), but it’s high on the list. Soon…

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I discover that I have had 79 beers from G’shire, which given my modest total places it 7th in my county rankings. Much of this consumption is down to the splendid craft brewers already mentioned. My top 10 include 5 from Wiper and True, 2 from Lost and Grounded and 2 from Left Handed Giant with only 1 from Deya surprisingly. Equally puzzling with hindsight, Arbor seems to figure mainly in the tail. Moor and even Goff have won favour more frequently. I will add Bristol and Cheltenham to the swelling list of places to drink in, if I am spared.

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For me, Gloucestershire is pretty much Bristol. If we ever separated Bristol out I would suppose my Gloucestershire rates would be pretty low. But I love many of the breweries here, which is why it’s the second-highest rated county on average at 3.49 despite the relatively low number of rates (105, which isn’t nearly enough for a top 50 place).

My top beers from Gloucestershire are:

Arbor Goo Goo G’joob 4.5
Moor Benny Havens 4.4
Arbor / Steel City / Hopcraft Argy Bargy 4.3
Arbor CafÊ Crème 4.2
Arbor / Mezzo Passo Basta Rosse 4.1
Moor JJJ IPA 4.1

Arbor was one of the first craft breweries that I fell in love with, and it’s currently my highest-rated English brewery. I’ve had 16 of their beers (nowhere near enough), only topped by Moor (23) and followed by Wiper and True (11), New Bristol (8), Lost and Grounded and Deya (7 each).

I’ve only been to Bristol since rating beers, having had a trip to Cheltenham thwarted by the snow a couple of years ago. The top 3 places are handily within a couple of minutes from one another:

Famous Royal Navy Volunteer 84
Beer Emporium 84
Small Bar 82

I’d love to go back, although I’d probably prefer hitting somewhere different in the county first.

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I rather like Gloucestershire, in my swimming pool previous job days, the job from many years ago, which I seem to bore you with most weeks, anyway whilst in that role I worked for a company for about four and a half years. The company I worked for were based in Bredon (nr Tewksbury) and then in Tewksbury itself or rather on an industrial estate near the M5. As others have already said its quite a diverse county, the Forest of Dean, Bristol and surrounding area, the Cotswolds and the River Severn, not forgetting Cheltenham, Gloucester and a whole host of pretty Cotswold stone towns and villages with great names like Upper and Lower Slaughter, Moreton-in-the Marsh. Like Glen I have stayed at the Moreton campsite and done a nice walk around the town, it is a nice place. When I was a kid there used to be a bus from Banbury every week to the market at Moreton. Like Garrold I have also had an enjoyable time (just the once mind) at the Woolpack in Slad. Many, many years ago when I was in Worcester CAMRA we organised a trip to Uley brewery, the brewer wasn’t there, he was running late, we were shown in by a colleague, shown the barrels of Old Spot, Pigor Mortis or whatever it was called and told to help ourselves, I am not lying when I say that the brewer turned up about 2-3 hours later, me and my brother and others were laid outside on the grass in the sun, with smiling faces having consumed copious amounts of beer, we didn’t feel inclined to do the brewery tour at this point, we were still offered more beers though. There is another trad’ brewery nearby that we did a tour to as well but I forget their name.

I used to go to the football quite a bit to see my beloved Worcester City play Gloucester City, Cheltenham Town (when they were Non-League), Bath City, Moreton Town and others who I have forgotten, some great football memories, we had quite a rivalry with Gloucester City in particular as they were Southern League like us.

I have rated 378 beers and sit in 14th position.

My top beers span quite a few breweries with Arbor, Moor, Deya, Wiper and True all in there, if I went down to 10th spot then Deya take 4 out of those with Bristol Beer Factory and Southville Hop doing their best to upset the monopoly.

My Rating Avg Entered Updated
Moor Hoppiness 4.3 3.74 4/28/2014
Deya Dust My Broom 4.3 3.69 7/20/2018
Arbor / Bristol Beer Factory / Harbour La Trippale 4.2 3.61 12/4/2013
Wiper and True Quintet 4.2 3.61 11/9/2014
Moor Benny Havens 4.2 3.55 4/23/2016

I really like Deya, Loz and I used to visit reasonably often, sometimes staying at the racecourse campsite or the campsite out on the Gloucester road, Premier Inn or at my brothers in Dumbleton which is on the Worcs/Glos border between Winchcombe and Evesham. It was nice to bump into Chris @LazyPyro there on a Friday evening which happened a few times, and like Chris I am a big fan of Deya, I don’t get to try them quite so often these days but occasionally my brother will post some out to me, Deya was just what the Cheltenham beer scene needed. I also like Favourite Beers and the other place that Chris mentioned and which he told me about, I went there once and it is a nice place. Cheltenham is well worth a stopover or weekend, Gloucester on the other hand,… mmhhh… I have never really got into Gloucester, I did once go to the rugby as most of our friends in Merton were fans of Gloucester Rugby team, the singing which seemed to last the entire game was a one-word ditty and you only had to sing the single word Gloucester to be fluent in the fans singing repertoire, I was bored to tears by the unimaginative chanting and boring spectacle, I cannot recall the scoreline, but remember that they were playing Bath so it was a fairly local match.

Like @BlackHaddock I also used to go to the Cotswold Beer Festival at Postlip Hall, it was a great festival, I remember a drunken journey heading back to Worcester after a Friday night session, and a live bat had managed to get on the 52 seater coach and caused panic and mayhem with its flapping about.

Bristol I could go on about for ages, it is as other have said a great city for beer, pubs and just a lovely city as well. I agree that it rivals some of the best places in the UK and a single weekend visit would barely do it justice. We used to stay at the campsite that was near the SS Great Britain (so very central) however after that closed, we stayed at Bath Marina and caught the bus in, though it is worth noting that Bath is a pretty handy place as well for beer.

I have rated 45 places in Gloucestershire which sees it tied in equal 4th with Greater Manchester, here are my top places below.

\ 7x7 My Rating Avg Entered Updated
Old Spot Inn 88 81 9/17/2015
Small Bar 86 97 1/5/2015 1/5/2015
BrewDog Bristol 84 90 1/5/2015
Favourite Beers 84 95 5/15/2016 3/27/2020
Sandford Park Alehouse 84 90 5/18/2016 5/18/2016
Deya Brewing Taproom (2016-2020) (CLOSED) 84 95 9/14/2017

I have had beers from 41 breweries 11 of which are sadly closed here are the top ones below.

Name Type Beer Count My Count Est.
Arbor Ales
Bristol Microbrewery 360 43 2007
Deya Brewing Company
Cheltenham Microbrewery 189 42 2015
Moor Beer Co.
Bristol Microbrewery 121 40 2007
Bristol Beer Factory
Bristol Microbrewery 189 33 2004
Left Handed Giant Brewing Co.
Bristol Brewpub/Brewery 282 33 2015
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Ha! It’s an uncommon but certainly not unique opinion to be fair. Don’t think I’ve ever felt their quality dipping dramatically, but I’ve definitely found myself tiring of their releases at some points, especially during 2020; lots of “new” beers but it’s just a slightly different hop combo. I enjoy them but it does feel like you’re drinking the same beer each week. True for lots of hazy juice brewers though innit.

I feel Deya have really been back on form as of the past 2 months though, last few DIPAs and TIPAs were outstanding in my opinion.
I think the thing that’s got me rating them so highly recently is they’re using a lot of the hops that I am a huge fan of right now (Strata, Motueka).

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Ah blasphemy! How can you go to Pizza Express when Cheltenham has the excellent Fat Tonis? Great pizza, stupidly hot sauce and local pale ales.

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Have 101 rates for Gloucestershire, the top being Wilding Cider Run Deep 2017 with 4.1

Bristol is a great city for cider drinking, did a cider pub crawl and attended the Cider Salon there in 2018 - excellent event, once inside cider makers chat & pour samples and racked up lots of rates (just got afew questions if I was a reporter as I was writing my ratings up into a note book!). It was cancelled last year, but looks like Cider Salon is back on for 2021, and is highly recommended. http://www.cidersalon.co.uk/

There are 45 active cideries in Gloucestershire, with Severn Cider having the most with 30 listed

The top lists for ciders and cideries are:

GloucestershireCider Ratings

GloucestershireCideries

Wassail!

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Work took me to Gloucestershire (Bristol mostly but also Cheltenham and Gloucester) countless times up until around 5/6 years ago (before I was doing much on RateBeer). Since starting rating more regularly I’ve only been back to the area for brief assignments in Gloucester and Cheltenham so rating wise for me it’s been quite a slow county, and never one I particularly sought out at festivals etc.

I used to love my visits to Bristol. Over a period of around 20 years there was always something which took me there either clients, suppliers or branch offices to visit. For a period of a couple of years around 2013/14 I had the reporting line for the Bristol branch manager and was required to be in Bristol 3-4 days a month. I loved every minute and got to know the beer scene (and cider scene) very well. So many great pubs I got to visit. Keep saying I need to go back and see what its like now.

So despite the missed rating opportunities I’ve managed to get to 39th place on the region leader board with 175 and 5th place on the Breweries with 47.

My top rated beers are:

Moor / Lambrate Last Minute 4.3
Wiper and True Stout Milk Shake 4.2
Deya Steady Rolling Man 2016- 4.1
Left Handed Giant Big Iron 4.1

Highest volume breweries:

Left Handed Giant 17
Arbor 16
Gloucester and Moor 11

My highest rated brewery appears to be Arbor 3.63 (I wish there was an easy way to sort your average brewery rating by region/country or filter them from your top breweries list).

Place wise my highest rated of the 9 I’ve reviewed is Sandford Park Alehouse in Cheltenham with an 80. Though Small Bar and The Crown would definitely have scored higher had I rated them.

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Biting my tongue as usual on the incorrect grouping of Brizzle with Gloucestershite…

Agree Brizzle has become one of the best cities in the country for beer - frustrating in a way, it was rubbish when I moved away!

Not collated my stats (on my own spreadsheet, not rated here) but I know I’ve had well over 200 from Moor… except 95% are from when it was a Somerset brewery (brewery moves are a pain - I’ve been denied my San Marino tick as the brewery I had there subsequently moved to Italy and so my rating is ‘Italian’ too).

In terms of actual Glawstershire, Mills are one of the best in the country for my money, just a shame I rarely see them! Deya don’t do much for me, just another hype brewery knocking out a procession of near-identical ‘joose’. Can’t think of many stand-out places either, used to like Wild’s Jessop Jessop Jessop House in Cheltenham, sadly demised. Tank in Glawster is decent if you’re passing, Alehouse in Stroud is ok, can’t think of much else, at least not from a beer POV, plenty of nice buildings serving mediocre beer though

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Bit late to the party with this one …

Gloucestershire, famous for cheese, pigs, horse racing, a doctor in the rain and a very successful one-day county cricket team back in days of yore (home games played in Bristol :slightly_smiling_face:). As far as ratings are concerned I’ve got 9, which puts it in the top 10 of counties for me, and those 9 are from 7 breweries so no focus at all! Trips to the county have been hit and miss really, last one was just prior to my RB activity spicing up, a week in the Cotswolds which was lovely, with plenty of nice little country pubs visited and average cask ale (and a couple of ciders) supped, in towns (villages) with quaint / weird names; prior to that a weekend in Gloucester was gash, place is a hole! Cheltenham & Bristol offered some beery options, but both were before they became craft-beery - sounds like the latter needs another visit, and it’s about time I tried another Good Chemistry beer, only one I’ve had was pre-(active)RB at the Shrewsbury BF and was marvellous.

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I seem to have done a fair bit of beer drinking in Gloucestershire, in part as I have worked in Tewkesbury, Bristol, and Cheltenham a various different times.

In total I have tried 332 Gloucestershire beers which puts the county 8th highest. which places me well outside the top 10. I do just scrape into joint 10th in the number of breweries tried which is 40.

The most tried breweries are probably not a surprise.

Brewery Count
Wiper & True 52
Deya 37
Moor Beer 29
Left Handed Giant 24

In terms of top rated beers 10% of the beers I have tried I rated 4 or over. The top of the list is domninated by Deya…

Beer Rate
Arbor Breakfast Stout - Kentucky Bourbon Barrel 4.5
Deya Saturated In Motueka 4.5
Deya Saturated In Strata 4.5
Arbor Oyster Stout 4.4
Deya We’ll Take It Off the Zombies 4.4
Deya Saturated In Simcoe 4.4
Moor / La Quince Batallas Double Stout Rum BA 4.3
Deya Back To Earth 4.3
Deya Something Good 5 4.3

In terms of places I have rated 17 the top ones are:

Place Rate
Salutation Inn (Tileys) 86
Favourite Beers 84
Bath Ales Brewery Shop 76
Sandford Park Alehouse 76
White Bear (CLOSED) 72

Which like a nice spread across the county. Until I made list I hadn’t realised the white bear in Tewkesbury had shut. I do want to go back to cheltenham again as my stays were BD (Before Deya).

I have fond memories of Favourite Beer and the friendly helpful chap that ran it and remember the famous Banksy just across the road. I got my first and now annual Beer Advent Calendar from Favourite Beer back in 2014 I think it was.

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