The Guide Dog, Bevois Valley, Southampton

Let's get the CAMRA thing over and done with "Closed in 1981, it reopened in 1984 as the Guide Dog after the previous landlady had raised £14,000 for the charity. Eight hand pumps serve a wide range of ales, mainly from small breweries. Beer can be served in four-pint carry-out containers and jugs. Within walking distance of St Mary's football stadium (1 mile), it gets busy on match days. It hosts a variety of charity events, has a weekly meat draw on Friday, and an annual autumn beer festival". This has made it into Britain's top 16 pubs and this one 'Best in Wessex'. I think this says more about CAMRA than the pub which does sell beer on average about 50p cheaper than the South Western Arms which is only 5 minutes away and inexplicably missed the good beer guide in 2009-2010 and to my mind a better pub but supposedly not rated as high as this and on value for money, the 'Dog' can not be faulted. A bit like waking into somebody's front room with book shelves that you're actually meant to read the literature on. All the ales we sampled were in fine order. You'll need your sunglasses as energy bulbs have not caught on here. Yes it's a good pub and worth taking in on a mini pub crawl of an area that is the best for Real Ale in the City.

The Guide Dog is an old fashioned back street pub, a one-room alehouse with a good range of ales that included on my visit several Christmas entries (I'm not really a fan of christmas beers - if they were any good they'd be brewed all year round) as well as Dark Star Hop Head, Flowerpots Goodens Gold and Fullers London Porter. On Christmas Eve it was still pretty busy, with families drinking and a very festive mood pervading. Southampton doesn't have too many excellent pubs so its understandable that this is a GBG regular, although I'd say the average 9.5 rating is a tad generous.

Hidden away in a back street, nothing much to look at from the street, and a fairly basic single-bar layout. However, on entering, you immediately notice that this is a proper beer-drinkers pub with an excellent selection of eight real ales chalked up on a couple of blackboards. The atmosphere is also warm and welcoming, with friendly staff and good-natured chat from the locals. My pint of Knights Porter from the Three Castles Brewery was first class and very reasonably priced at £2.60. I would happily have stayed to try a few more had time permitted, and you can see how it has regularly won the local CAMRA branch pub of the year. Not the easiest place to get to, but very much worth the effort.

Finding myself in Southampton for the evening, I made the lengthy, but ultimately worthwhile, trek from the train station to this charming back-street local’s pub. There were 8 hand pumps, all in use when I arrived, serving up a mixture of familiar favourites and more obscure local brewers. I tried the Bowman's Elderado and Swift One and the Flowerpots Gooden's Gold, all of which were in top condition. The pub started to fill up from around 6pm until it was packed to bursting point in the run up to Southampton's cup game that evening. The atmosphere was excellent, helped by the friendly and efficient bar staff. Saints fans will be pleased by the interesting prints and other such memorabilia that adorns the walls. An absolute must for visitors to Southampton; I'll certainly be back the next time I'm in town.

Official site of the Guide Dog - theguidedogsouthampton.co.uk