The Branch organises a Pub of the Year competition every year, with the selection process happening between roughly October and March.
Members are asked to nominate pubs, which are then validated to ensure they have scored highly for beer quality during the preceding year. Members then score the pubs on the shortlist. The pub with the best average score is the Pub of the Year.
Nomination and scoring are done online using our dedicated Pub of the Year site.
There are three awards, which all use the same scores:
The City Pub of Year is the Norwich pub with the highest average score; the District Pub of the Year is the pub outside Norwich with the highest score; and the overall Branch Pub of the Year is the highest scoring pub overall (so automatically also City or District winner).
Current Pubs of the Year
Branch Pub of the Year 2023 – The White Lion, Oak St, Norwich
Also City Pub of the Year, Branch Cider Pub of the Year, Norfolk Pub and Cider Pub of the Year and East Anglia Cider Pub of the Year.
The White Lion is a three-roomed pub with a main bar to the front, with six handpumps, a back room with seating and a ‘games room’ with a bar billiards table and more seating to the side. There’s a small patio garden off the games room. Beers are from local breweries, especially Mr Winter’s, Tindall’s, Moon Gazer, Bull of the Woods, and also good independent breweries across the UK such as Three Blind Mice, Ossett and Salopian.
District Pub of the Year 2023 – The Cock, Dereham
The Cock is a traditional ‘back street’ two-roomed pub, with a small, low-beamed front room with a bar sporting four handpumps, and a larger area to the rear, with another bar and seating, including tables for eating. There’s also a pretty courtyard to the side and rear. The real ales are mostly from local breweries such as Tindall’s, Moon Gazer and Wildcraft.
Previous winners:
- 2022 Kings Head, Magdalen St. (also Norfolk Pub of the Year, East Anglian Pub of the Year, and National Finalist) District: Red Lion Hotel, Cromer
- 2021 no award due to the pandemic
- 2020 Hop In, North Walsham. City: Fat Cat, West End St.
- 2019 Leopard, Bull Close Rd. (also Norfolk Pub of the Year)
- 2018 Fat Cat Brewery Tap (now The Brewery Tap), Lawson Rd.
- 2017 Kings Head, Magdalen St.
- 2016 Fat Cat Brewery Tap, Lawson Rd.
- 2015 Beehive, Leopold Rd.
- 2014 Fat Cat, West End St.
- 2013 Locks Inn, Geldeston (now in East Norfolk Branch)
- 2012 Fat Cat, West End St.
If you know the winners prior to 2012, please let us know, as we don’t have records going back that far! (Or at least we probably do, in back issues of Norfolk Nips, but as of now we haven’t had time to do the research!).