Phil Mellows keeps his head down to avoid the pain of judging Britain’s best pubs

No one ever believes me when I say that being a judge for the Great British Pub Awards isn’t all fun, but a few days in, I already have the bump on my head to prove it. The bump is the result of a brush with a cellar ceiling, a frequent hazard of the job, as I descend precipitous steps into the cramped engine room of a pub to check that everything’s clean, tidy and well-organised – a good pint depends on it.

I’m also on the look-out for vegetables. It’s tempting for a pub to store them in the cool of the cellar, but it really can affect the taste of cask ale.

Judging the best pubs in the land, you see, isn’t simply a matter of drinking and eating. The quality of the drinks and the food, of the service and that elusive thing they call the ‘atmosphere’, all depend on what goes on behind the scenes, and the way the publican runs the operation.

So I also check the kitchen to see that everything’s running efficiently, while trying not to get in the way. It’s best to visit when the pub isn’t too busy.

The toilets can also be a sign of a well-run pub. If they’re super-clean with nice little touches of decoration, it’s likely the rest of the place is also getting the attention to detail it deserves – and that includes, of course, the customer.

That comes down to the people working there, behind the bar and in the kitchen. Any decent publican will tell you the staff are the most important part of their business, but what are they doing to make sure they greet you with a smile because they’re happy and not because it tells them to do it in the staff handbook?

A customer might come away happy without exactly knowing why. They’ve unconsciously absorbed countless impressions, the kind of things I try to be alert to when I’m making a judging visit, from the way the pub looks as you approach it, to whether the bar staff give you the kind of cheery goodbye that makes you think you’d quite like to go there again.

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