Customer Reviews

The Good Pub Guide 2012

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

For any previous buyers or regular users of the GPG - Beware - the 2012 edition is a sad disappointment. The 2012 edition is marked by the significant change of charging pubs for them to be featured in the guide - however this change is neither stated or honestly acknowledged in the guide. BBC radio 4 exposed the change. Understandably pubs have it seems refused to pay to be included.One consequene of this change is that the guide can no longer be relied upon to provide useful information on the best, interesting or intriguing pubs in an area. A comparison of the 2010 and 2012 guide highlights the change - the 2010 edition includes 60+ detailed reviews of pubs in London - the 2012 edition a mere 13. Although the guide now includes a section on : "Also Worth a Visit" - the 3-4 lines on each entry are far from adequate. Overall the impact is that the 2012 edition will be the last that I buy.

I am an avid reader of the Good Pub Guides and buy the new edition every year. The 2012 release is so disappointing, mainly because of the relegation of incredible pubs due to their (understandable) reluctance to pay the new fee for inclusion. I will not buy again, but recommend the CAMRA Good Beer Guide 2012 as an alternative.

Regular purchaser of this Guide which for us has been the best and most reliable source of information for good pubs when travelling in UK. Disappointed with the change of format this year, grouping into geographical areas, rather than the traditional counties makes locating new pubs for us in the Guide less easy. The change to charging a fee for entries results in the perception of some loss of integrity and the change to whiter more expensive paper for the text appears to be a needless expense when the Guide has a realistic life of 12 months. The introduction of black and white maps to replace the traditional four colour maps is also disappointing.

I've bought this in previous years and it was very useful. This year I bought the 2012 guide without looking at any of the reviews here. The negative reviews are correct!
This new guide is extremely inconvenient to use:
You look at a map and see an entry for a town - you then look up the guide to the maps to see what "region" it is deemed to be in, then find the part of the guide that covers that region, and look through the entries for that town. Each of the "editors' favourites" entries get a full description (good), but then you get further entries under an "also worth a visit" section. These have star ratings, but very brief entries, without telephone numbers, food details, opening hours etc., etc. I was confused - are these starred entries "worse" than the "editors' choices"? No, it seems these entries just haven't paid a fee, so get a 2nd rate entry! Worse still, these "also worth a visit" entries do not warrant being featured in the maps. So if you look at a town which is devoid of any entry - it just means that no pub has paid for an entry, but there might be several "also worth a visit" entries! I buy this book mostly to find pubs that do accommodation, but as most of the entries no longer give this information, it is hardly a proper unbiased and independent guide. If the editors had the decency to clearly explain their new system, I might have had some sympathy for them, instead I was extremely annoyed about the structure and contents of the book - until reading these reviews realised what had happened.
I was very tempted to send the book back to Amazon. I will certainly never buy this book in future years, an d suggest anyone thinking of buying a copy look carfeully at the reviews here to see whether it is of much use to you.

The publication of the new guide is always a highlight of the autumn for me - not this year though.I have always been strongly in favour of change and moving forward but not this time. Main entries only if paid for ! I know what my reaction would have been as an owner and it wouldn't have been polite. Huge areas to look for main entries as well. The vast area named the South-west stretching from Bristol to Penzance which are 190 miles apart, a bit difficult when you are looking for somewhere to try for lunch, it's actually quicker to drive to Preston 190 miles north than it is to south Cornwall. All of our favourites are in the 'worth a visit' list now so we shall use that instead. Don't recycle your 2011 guide, hang onto it!

A great disappointment. Inaccuracies on first sample, mediocre pubs recommended, good ones missed out for area we recently visited. A complete waste of money for us.

For years on end we have used the Good Pub Guide almost as a bible as we travel up and down the country, and indeed it is practically the most used book in our household. We take it on every holiday in the UK, and have made our own comments for each visit and dated it, then transferred it to the next edition so we can remember if we've visited before. Given the negative reviews on Amazon I would urge the GPG people to reconsider the 2013 edition and return to the tried and generally trusted pre-2012 ones. I had this down on my Christmas wish list but have removed it and won't buy a copy again until I can be satisfied that it will be worth the money.

I have bought the Good Pub Guide for years - but this year may be the last.Poorly laid out, more difficult to use, and they are charging main entries to be in it.It is disappointing that changes have not been properly thought through - it has certainly lost its appeal to me.

Having bought and used this Guide for many years the 2012 edition can only be described as a shambles! Pubs used to be arranged by counties - now they are arranged by arbitary areas - ie 'The Heart of England', etc. Worst of all they are now charging pubs for entry which makes the selection dubious at best. A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT!

Like others we have been regular GPG users for years and contribute reviews. But this year's guide has become so poor that I may just ditch it and start using Tripadvisor or some other means. Some of the very best pubs we have eaten in over last year have not agreed to pay for an entry and get a place in the 'worth a visit' section while others we have been to and thought 'ok' end up as main entries. The publishers claim they need to charge because of seeing decrease book sales and increase in use of the website, so accessing their research for free. I suggest they have a big rethink and charge website users a subscription fee and go back to their previous non-charging structure otherwise this guide will lose many many loyal users. I bought the guide this year because as a contributor i was offered a discount, but i will not buy next year unless they change.