A LOCAL pub is celebrating 35 years of being recognised nationally for serving up a good pint.
Last week saw the launch of the Campaign for Real Ale
(CAMRA) Good Beer Guide 2008.
It is the 35th year of the guide and only 10 pubs across the country have featured in every edition. The New Inn, Kilmington, is proud to be one of these.
In recognition of their achievement, landlords Brian and Denise Jenkins were presented with a plaque from CAMRA to proudly display behind the bar.
Local CAMRA members select a number of pubs for the guide, which are then judged by local CAMRA branches. There is only one criteria - to provide consistently good real ale.
Members of the Exeter and East Devon branch of CAMRA were at the New Inn to celebrate the launch of the 2008 Good Beer Guide and to congratulate Mr and Mrs Jenkins on their achievement.
Credit is also due to the many other landlords, who over the years have played their part in keeping the New Inn in the Good Beer Guide. Former New Inn landlord and regular, Bill Woodsford, who was at the pub for five years before Mr Jenkins took over, also attended the presentation to celebrate the pub’s success.
Current landlord Brian Jenkins and his wife Denise have been at the New Inn for 16 years.
They serve up a variety of Palmer’s real ales, which are changed seasonally.
Ian Packham, South West Regional Director for CAMRA said: "The New Inn has produced consistently good ale for all these years. I think it is a great achievement for the pub and the fact they have managed to be in the guide for 35 years shows they have retained the quality of the real ale they serve.”
Landlord Mr Jenkins said: “We are a village pub serving our locals what they want and they keep coming back. It’s a sign of the brewers doing a good job and that we are looking after it well. It must be consistently good beer, which it has been throughout the past 35 years thanks to the previous landlords.”
It really is quite an achievement considering the pub suffered a severe fire in 2004, and they still managed to make it into the guide. Mr Jenkins added: “We were quite lucky because we had received our CAMRA inspection just before the fire and we had finished re-building the pub two weeks before the next inspection the following year.”