BRAPA in .... HAPPY NEW GOOD BEER GUIDE DAY

The 2027 Good Beer Guide is official out today.

No more embargoed 'secret ticks', no more GBG heebie-jeebies (for the next twelve months anyway).

The shackles are off and I can start the new pub ticking season with a positivity not experienced since 2023.

Incognito at Manchester's Bulls Head last Thursday (didn't work, landlady thought I was on drugs)

So what was the damage?

Well, I'll be starting the 2027 Good Beer Guide on 3,323 (73.8% of the Guide completed).

My final tick of the 2026 edition, the TQ Beerworks Taproom in Torquay, was number 3,617 meaning I have lost 294 pubs.

Sounds rough, but this is a decent outcome. A 8.1% reduction in my total is a significant improvement on 2025 (10.1%) and 2024 (10.4%). I think 2023 was also around the 8% mark but I'd need to check.

Upstairs in TQ Beerworks, Torquay. Bit weird, but at least it kept its place in the Guide

The reason for the lower #CruelChurn is due to a more mindful push on the pre-emptives over the past 12 months. Most notably Wetherspoons, and it is noticeable how many 'Spoons noobs are in the book this year.

Looking at pubs scoring 3* on the CAMRA website has also benefited me, though has also been a red herring at times.

I should add that my gross total (pubs ticked across EVERY Guide) has rocketed up to 6507 so the bigger that pool gets, the lower the churn should be (in theory) with returnees doing what returnees do best, that is returning.

'I've got some scattered beer guides, lying on my bedroom floor' (carpet 3/10)

A Week in the life of the BRAPA 'Cross-Tick'

Let me tell you a fascinating story.

I hadn't expected to receive the Good Beer Guide as early as Friday 11th September. If that makes Evri better than Yodel, then so be it.

I was minding my own business, doing a bit of Business Loan Administration from my desk at home, like one does, mid-late morning when my phone buzzed with a message from my Mackem marra John over in Poppleton. He only bloody has the new book!

Before I've gone to make my ham, eggs and avocado luncheon, my phone buzzes again. A GBG shaped box has arrived at the RetiredMartin residence over in Sheffield, but he's on his seventeenth pre-lunchtime pint in Dewsbury's West Riding Refreshment Rooms so isn't around to see it yet. These completists eh? Proper showboaters.

None of the other tickers report having it yet, and I check both BlueSky and X and I don't have any of the usual Farnborough, Newmarket or North Lincolnshire lads taunting me like usual.

So I go to make my lunch thinking "I've just gotta be relaxed about this, if it comes it comes, if not hopefully John or Martin can DM me the Hertfordshire pages, maybe Central London too if I'm being cheeky, for tomorrow's trip. Stay calm. Nobody panic!"

Anyway, I'm having my feed, halfway through 1991 Home & Away. An abysmal storyline is just wrapping up featuring future Hollywood star Naomi Watts playing a lass in a wheelchair, Julie. Policeman Nick (and the rest of Summer Bay, especially big mouth Bobby) have decided there's NO WAY they can be anything more than friends .... absolutely nothing to do with the fact she's, in the words of the writers 'a cripple', of course not(!) Even though she's gorgeous, a nice personality and they are well matched. Watts later described her guest stint on the show as 'six weeks from hell' and who can blame her?

I hear someone running up my stairwell, the faintest 'plop' and then running back down. No knock. No intercom. It couldn't be, could it? Either the GBG or the phantom pooer of old York town. I was also waiting for an anniversary card and some wrapping paper from Scribbler so had to temper my expectations .... but I open my door and by jove it's only bloody arrived!

Surprise, surprise. Cilla in the bogs at Swinton Hop House, one of my secret ticks

Amazingly, I didn't so much as open it until 4pm. Left it in my kitchen, focussed on work which was busy enough to stop my mind wandering, and of course shows my professionalism!

This is my Christmas Day without snooker, clementines, Scrooge and sprouts, and I was buzzing to start cross-ticking. Still hardly any other folk had received it, and the problem with that is that every fucker wants pages of various counties!

No worries, sure they'd do the same for me if roles were reversed and some did (like when I was up in Edinburgh, Lothians and Borders a year ago) so I was happy to help, and forced me to tick off some 'bigger counties' instead of leaving all the tough stuff (North Yorks, Derbys) til the end.

First tick of the new GBG - John Bunyan, Coleman's Green, Herts.

The inclusion of Ayot's Green & Welwyn and the de-guiding of all things Stevenage (I'll never get to Chequers will I?) meant an eleventh hour change to my Saturday plan, but nowt major and meant I got my first pumpkin spiced latte of the season in St Albans Black Sheep which felt very middle class.

I kept a clearish head so I could spend a full day at it on the Sunday.

Mauled by the Beer Guide

I kept a running tally of 'avg loss per county' having worked out 4.23 would be 300, to increase the 'theatre'. Proper thrilling stuff. Like falling behind required run rate in cricket.

It started so badly, new ticks in Ampthill AND Bedford. AS IF. Berkshire was a prize nob. North Yorkshire needed its hard drive checking, FML. Dumfries & Galloway irrationally bad. Close of play on day one, I feared the worst.

But as we moved into Monday evening / day two, I notice how 'kind' some of my bigger counties are. North, West and Central London. Greater Manchester. West Yorkshire. Essex. Kent & Lincs not their often appalling selves. Even West Midlands wasn't a cunt of a bitch relatively speaking - I had 100% completion there this year so losing 11 (2 newbies in Brum centre) is not dreadful.

North Oxfordshire was a bugger for a third consecutive year, so it was time for another BRAPA tradition at this most cross-ticky time of year to prove I'm serious about getting late night shit done, the BRAPA takeaway. And what a delicious pizza from Cresci it was.

Washed down with a bit of 1985 Grundy's finest

It only took me a couple of hours on the Tuesday evening to complete the cross-tick, my quickest ever. Back sore, eyes stinging. Surrey was a twat late on, and then I was roundly spanked about the arse by South London, which hit me for 17, pushing me above the 300. Ouch! Even worse than the 16 I lost in North Yorkshire.

Oh, and I'd missed a Fenny Stratford because they'd made it MK and I just had it as FS on my spreadsheet. So easy to miss this stuff. So many pub name changes this year too! Only just spotted one in Hemel Hempstead yesterday, so that was another bonus. Providing the building stays where it is, the BRAPA rule is I don't have to revisit these.

A word on the book itself. I'm impressed. The paper is the most noticeable change. More errrm, papery. Takes a Stabilo better. Less smudge potential. Despite the book seeming chunkier, it feels considerably lighter than the 2026 edition so that's another plus. But the proof will be in how it looks by next September!

Over in Lincs, my old mate Axholme Rob has identified our 'banter' entry of the GBG. Yes, of course it's in Lincs ....

Opens some Saturday's too apparently, not sure which ones. When the moon is in the eighth house of Aquarius?

I think completing the cross-tick by Tuesday is a new BRAPA record. I wanna be like Sunderland & Newcastle on election night.

I usually complete it on the Thursday, hungover, recovering from my attempted beery A-Z at York Beer Festival on the Wednesday evening. This year, I could lie in til lunchtime guilt free!

Only got to letter P this year, I think my record in one day is U but I was very very drunk

So how many of my 17 'secret ticks' did you identify? I tried to be sly but as usual slipped up occasionally. Here's the list .....

John Bunyan	Coleman Green	Hertfordshire	12/09/2026
Waggoners	Ayot Green	Hertfordshire	12/09/2026
Rose & Crown	Welwyn	Hertfordshire	12/09/2026
Plough	Datchworth	Hertfordshire	12/09/2026
Lytton Arms	Knebworth	Hertfordshire	12/09/2026
Ship Tavern	Holborn	London (Central)	12/09/2026
Tim Bobbin	Urmston	Greater Manchester	18/09/2026
Fox Pub & Kitchen	Flixton	Greater Manchester	18/09/2026
Park	Monton	Greater Manchester	18/09/2026
Swinton Hop House	Swinton	Greater Manchester	18/09/2026
Wily Fox Brewery	Wigan	Greater Manchester	18/09/2026
Wigan Brewhouse	Wigan	Greater Manchester	18/09/2026
High Main	Newcastle upon Tyne : Byker	Tyne & Wear	19/09/2026
Luckies	Newcastle upon Tyne : Jesmond	Tyne & Wear	19/09/2026
Firebrick Taproom	Blaydon	Tyne & Wear	19/09/2026
Lane Head	Ryton	Tyne & Wear	19/09/2026
Bridge End Inn	Ovingham	Northumberland	19/09/2026

I also ticked a micropub in Heaton called 'Last Resort' but as soon as I got inside, I realised I'd been before. Elder Beer Café apparently. Bonus was, much better on this occasion and Daddy BRAPA got to enjoy it too.

I've wittered on long enough, but I'll do a part 2 and probably 3 where I 'induct' a record number of pre & post emptives' onto my main spreadsheet. Triple the number I normally get too!

Have a great 2026/27 GBG season and keep it pub,

Si