An Award Winning Pub

Published on 16 July 2003 in Pubs, Ealing, London, pubs, pubs in Ealing, The Red Lion

Heartiest congratulations to The Red Lion on St. Mary’s Road, Ealing, which has won CAMRA West Middlesex branch pub of the year, for the second year running!

The Red Lion has been my local in Ealing for over three years and I can honestly say that it’s a well deserved award. It’s a pub I’m proud to call my drinking home. Even if I only tend to go there once, maybe twice a week.

It’s especially pleasing as the award marks over a year in office for the current licensees, Jonathan and Victoria Lee. Last years title was awarded after they took over the pub, but voted for well before they arrived (back when the pub was managed by a nice block called Jason), so it’s good to see that their hard work over the year has seen success for the Lion yet again.

It was also great to see the award going to the Red Lion as myself and Catherine, being CAMRA members since last September, also voted for the place.

To be fair, we tried not to be biased, and having visited two out of the three competitors (The Fox in Hanwell, and The Load of Hay in Uxbridge) it was quite tough to decide who to vote for.

The Load of Hay was an especially strong competitor – scoring very well on my score chart. The only black mark was down to a huge whiteboard in the pub. Call me funny but white boards should not feature in a good pub.

Whether any ‘local’ bias swayed us for voting for The Red Lion, well who knows. Possibly. But we like it anyway, and the award is very much deserved.

If you’re in Ealing, the award ceremony is tomorrow at 7:30. Whether I’ll be there, I don’t know, but you never know!

As an aside, the award also means that the pub will be entered into the race to be CAMRA London pub of the year for the second year running. If there wasn’t enough competition in West Middlesex, the whole of London is even tougher, and the judging harsher. Still… you never know!