15/03/2026
Llongyfarchiadau mawr i Zac a’r tîm🍻🍻
Massive congratulations to Zac and the team, well deserved👏👏👏
BOTTLE & BARREL WINS OUR PUB OF THE YEAR AWARD
Congratulations to the Bottle & Barrel which is our pub of the year for 2026.
**Everyone is warmly invited to the presentation of the award in the Bottle & Barrel at 7pm on Tuesday 31 March**
Many thanks to all the local members who took part in the process to find the winner.
The Bottle & Barrel will now go up against the winning pubs from Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire in the competition for CAMRA West Wales pub of the year.
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The Bottle & Barrel:-
Zac Marsden opened the Bottle & Barrel in Cambrian Place, Aberystwyth in May 2019.
The bar offers three cask ales and twelve keg beers along with two bag-in-box ciders.
The wide choice of beer styles includes IPAs, pales, stouts, porters, lagers and sours from many different breweries.
The beer and cider list appears on a digital screen behind the bar and online, and you can order a flight to try four smaller measures of the cask and keg beers.
The friendly bar staff are very knowledgeable about beer, and they will talk you through the different styles, offering tasters to help you find one you like.
The Bottle & Barrel also plays a key role in Aberystwyth’s summer beer festival.
The bar’s décor is contemporary with a choice of seating from armchairs to high stools, and a rear courtyard. Events include meet the brewer sessions, beer tastings and quizzes.
The onsite bottle and can shop sells a huge range of beer and cider to drink on the premises or take away, and you can also buy take-outs of draught beer and cider.
You can bring in your own food or order a delivery from the Sicilian street food café opposite.
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How we chose our pub of the year:-
The process to find the winner started when every local CAMRA member was given the opportunity to vote for one pub.
The pubs with the most votes were then visited anonymously and discretely at different times over several weeks by ten volunteer members.
During these visits, the volunteers evaluated each pub against CAMRA’s pub of the year criteria. These criteria include the quality and condition of real ale and cider; promotion and knowledge of real ale and cider; cleanliness and staff hygiene; the role a pub plays in its local community; the service and welcome; the style, décor and atmosphere; sympathy with CAMRA’s aims; and overall impression and value.
In common with many other CAMRA branches, Bae Ceredigion CAMRA has recently decided that no pub may win our pub of the year award two years running. This meant that our 2025 winner, the Rhos yr Hafod, was not eligible for the competition this year. Our committee considered this new approach carefully and they concluded that it would help the branch to encourage and promote the wide variety of excellent pubs that we are so lucky to have in our area.
