About our Pub Ratings

First things first: We’d like to not only acknowledge but emphasise the fact that our reviews are entirely subjective. We base our scores on what we personally like in a pub, rather than some universally acknowledged standard. Nor are they set in stone – if we revisit a pub and feel we’ve misjudged it, we will shamelessly cross out our first assessment in our ledgers. If you have a different opinion, please do share it with us in the comments! We would love to hear what your experiences have been at the pubs we review. We will always try to express our thoughts in an honest but civil manner, and we only ask that you do the same.

Pubs are given a rating out of seven in each of our five categories (listed below). We chose to designate a score out of seven as we thought a scale of one to ten would be too many, and one to five too limiting. Having an unorthodox amount like seven forces us to think critically about our scores and defend our decisions. The categories are then added, divided by 35 and rounded to the nearest hundredth, which gives us a final score that equates to the UK university grading system (we truly are academics at heart). Anything above 60 is a solid pub that’s worth returning to, anything above 70 is bound to be one of our favourites. Our highest rated pub to date received a whopping 82.14 – more on this in a future post!

Our Five Categories

• Beer selection: The most fundamental question to ask of any pub. How good is the brew? We typically rate pubs higher which have a wide selection on draught, especially if they include an option or two from a local brewery. As both of us prefer to drink lagers, pilsners and Weissbier, we have an admitted bias towards pubs that have a few quality lagers available – though we appreciate any pub with an impressive ale or cider selection as well!

• Food selection: This can be a tricky category to judge, as we eat less often at pubs than we drink. If we don’t order a meal, we always take a look at the menu to see what’s on offer and steal a glance at the meals beings served around us to make an educated guess. If we don’t feel like we can give a rating in good conscience – or if the pub simply doesn’t serve anything besides crisps – we simply skip this category and calculate the score out of 28 rather than 35.

• Ambience: In the loosest sense, ambience refers to the atmosphere in the pub – encompassing the locals, the music, the lighting and the vibe. It goes without saying, we like to see a pub that’s buzzing with good-natured and interesting people, but we can’t exclusively be in pubs on Friday and Saturday night when they’re at their busiest. That means the crucial thing is that the atmosphere is welcoming, friendly and feels right for the occasion. In that regard, an empty pub on a rainy Tuesday night can score just as highly as a popping weekend affair!

• Aesthetic: We’re definitely suckers for an archetypical pub aesthetic – give us low ceilings with dark wooden beams, a crackling fireplace and a threadbare rug any day. However, that’s not to say that we can’t appreciate more diverse pub styles. Key for a good score is that it feels cohesive and logical for the space.

• I.P.Q.: We feel that IPQ is what makes our rating system unique. It stands for “Intangible Pub Quality”, which is by far the most difficult category to explain and the most fun to discuss. As we’ll reiterate again and again on this blog, pubs are not just bars or restaurants. In addition to being places of food and drink, they represent a distinct platform for social platform, and any pub we visit that can facilitate that will score well in this category. Put bluntly, IPQ is the inherent pub-yness of a place. Some questions we might ask ourselves to assess this are: Is it cosy? Does it have a friendly bartender? Is it frequented by locals? Is it at all historic? Do you feel at home there? And, perhaps most importantly – Is there a pub dog? Typically, if a pub can answer ‘yes’ to at least three of those questions, it will receive a high “IPQ”.