Selecting Pubs for the Good Beer Guide
Every member of the Aberdeen, Grampian and Northern Isles branch is able to vote for their favourite pubs and thereby influence which pubs appear in our section of the Guide. The branch collates the votes from all of our members. The pubs which receive most votes are included in the Good Beer Guide. Entry in the Guide is limited by a quota reflecting the page-space available.
A member is eligible to vote for a pub if they have actually visited the pub and drank there in the previous 12 months (unless they have a personal interest in the operation of the pub).
A weighted voting system allows you to indicate your strength of conviction regarding each pub. The reason we want to differentiate between “blank” and “zero” votes is to have an idea of how many of our voting members visit each pub, even if they do not necessarily feel strongly enough about it to vote one way or another, and how many of our outlets are not being visited.
- Blank I have not been in this pub within the last year
- -2 Strongly against, “over my dead body”
- -1 Against inclusion in the Good Beer Guide, but not absolutely
- 0 I have been there, but I can’t make up my mind
- 1 I am generally in favour of this pub being in the Good Beer Guide
- 2 This pub should definitely be in the Good Beer Guide
Selection Process
In an attempt to make things equitable, a geographical weighting is used which favours pubs outside Aberdeen city. This comes in the shape of a multiplicative factor:
- 1x Pubs in central Aberdeen, defined as the area formed by the river Dee, the river Don and the A92 (Anderson Drive). There is an additional restriction of no more than 10 entries for this area.
- 2x Pubs in the rest of Aberdeen City, and the near commuter area – including the public transport corridors as far as and including Stonehaven, Banchory, Westhill, Inverurie, Oldmeldrum and Ellon, but not pubs inside this area with poor or non-existent public transport links.
- 3x Pubs that are anywhere else in the branch area.
Voting Paperwork
And then choose one of these in your preferred format:
Selection Meeting
The meeting to confirm pubs for the next Good Beer Guide usually takes place in February, see the branch diary.