Square & Compass in Worth Matravers receives award for 45 years in the Good Beer Guide

As CAMRA unveils the 45th edition of the Good Beer Guide it congratulates the Square & Compass in Dorset for the outstanding achievement of being listed in every single guide, demonstrating a consistent high standard of quality beer served in a fantastic setting.

The Square & Compass joins just four other pubs from across the country to make the ranks of the “famous five”, which includes the Star Tavern and the Buckingham Arms in London, the Roscoe Head in Liverpool and the Queen’s Head in Cambridge.

Roger Protz, who will be stepping down as editor of the Good Beer Guide after 24 years says: “Huge congratulations are in order for the Square & Compass, which has been listed in every single Good Beer Guide for the past 45 years. This is a great achievement which highlights the pub’s dedication to serving well-kept quality real ales over the decades.”

The Square & Compass is on CAMRA’s National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors and has been run by the same family since 1907. Two rooms either side of a serving hatch convey an impression that little has changed since then. The sea-facing garden offers fantastic views across the Purbecks and fossils are displayed in the small adjacent museum.

To be listed in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide is a high accolade. The guide is based entirely on personal recommendations made by local CAMRA members, which are rigorously reviewed by branches and editors.

Recommendations take into account beer quality as well as the history and architecture of a pub and various aspects such as food, gardens, family and disabled facilities and special events. CAMRA does not take any fees for listings to ensure the guide remains independent and unbiased.

Kevin Hunt from the Square & Compass said, “We are very pleased to be included again in the Good Beer Guide, now in it’s 45th year, and to have been recognised by CAMRA as a pub worth visiting since the guide was first published. It gets harder every year to fight the competition of cheap supermarket sales and discount pub chains and while the simplicity of a traditional wet-led public house is not to everyone’s taste, we still think it is a tradition worth upholding and we are glad that our customers seem to agree with us.

“We can only thank CAMRA for its dedication to good ales,ciders and pubs and hope it continues its campaigning while we continue serving good beers and ciders, over our small bar, to an ever growing throng of happy customers.”

CAMRA has also announced its Pub of the Year winner for the South West, the Salutation Inn in Ham. It will now compete in the next round of the competition. The final announcement of the National Pub of the Year will take place in early 2018.

The latest Good Beer Guide also announces 21 new breweries in the South West.