Dorset pub named top cider venue

Apples and pears can help save the Great British pub, according to the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra).

October is National Cider & Perry Month, and to encourage more consumers to get involved, Camra is hosting festivals throughout the country. It has also published a list of the UK's leading cider pubs on its website.

The news comes as freehouse the Square & Compass in Worth Matravers, Dorset, is named Camra's National Cider Pub of the Year 2008.

Licensee Charlie Newman attributed the win to a number of factors.

"Bigger companies turning the spotlight back onto cider, and being a real-ale pub means we've always been associated with traditional products," he said.

Cider accounts for a quarter of turnover. The pub sells around 14,000 litres of it, including Weston's, local brands and home brews Sat Down Be Cider, Eve's Idea and Adam's Rib. It also hosts an annual cider and sausage festival.

Andrea Briers, chair of Camra's Cider & Perry Committee, said: "The pub is quite simply a true success story among discerning pubgoers, and a beacon of light in a time where pub closures continually blight the media landscape."

She said the Square & Compass and finalists the Coopers Tavern in Burton and the Odd One Out in Colchester "are really setting the benchmark by showing others how to attract customers".

"The Square & Compass in particular has won acclaim for its own ciders.

"While we at Camra are not about to suggest every pub must learn the art of cider production, it is great to see how some pubs have found their unique selling points, and have thrived in the process."

See www.camra.org.uk/cider for more information on Cider & Perry Month.