What is the National Beer Scoring System?

The National Beer Scoring Scheme (NBSS) is a 0-5 point scale for judging beer quality in pubs. It is an easy to use system that has been designed by CAMRA to assist CAMRA branches in selecting pubs for the CAMRA Good Beer Guide and to monitor beer quality. This encourages CAMRA members to report beer quality on any pub they have visited in the UK.

How do I score the beers?

Beers are scored on a scale of zero to five. Half-scores (for example 2.5) are acceptable. The scores are as follows:

• 0. No cask ale available.
• 0.5 Undrinkable - Abysmally poor.
• 1 Poor - Barely drinkable. You may resent having paid for it
• 2 Average - Drinkable but unremarkable. Competently kept beer but you drink it beer without really noticing.
• 3 Good - the minumum for Good Beer Guide quality. Good beer in good form. Enjoyable enough to make you consider another round.
• 4 Very Good - Stands out for being in excellenct condition.
• 5 Perfect - Exceptional, maybe a one-in-a-thousand example. The opposite of 0.5. You should award this score very rarely.

Which beers and which pubs should I score?

Scores should only be submitted for cask-conditioned beer. We do not want scores for keg beer, bottled beer, cider or spirits. Please record scores for any pub you visit, whether it is in Keighley and Craven or another branch area. (To submit a score for a pub outside Keighley and Craven, you have to submit via the national site.) The Keighley and Craven area covers the towns of Haworth, Keighley, Skipton, Grassington, Settle, Ingleton, Bentham, and much of the surrounding countryside. It includes the Worth Valley and a large part of the western Yorkshire Dales. Click here, for a map of the branch area.

Bonus Pubs

We often need more scores for our less-visited pubs (good or not) so that they are treated fairly for Good Beer Guide selection. The pubs offcier may specify a few venues as bonus pubs each month. The Bonus Pubs are then shown on the Home Page of the Branch website at the foot of the ‘Headlines’ column.

Where can I see the results?

The results for the current month, previous month and scoring year so far are shown in the Members‘ Area of the branch web-site. To view the results, log into the Members’ Area, select ‘NBSS Cards’ from the menu. This will show you the scores you have entered so far this year. To view the top scorers‘ table, click the link which reads “To check the branch NBSS League Table, click here”. To view your own points summary, click the link which reads “To view a statistical summary of your cards, click here”.

• Duplicate scores (i.e. same pub, same beer, same date, same score) only count once. You can submit more than one score for a particular pub on a particular day if they are for different beers, but you must enter the beer name for these to count.
• Members can (and should) score pubs in other areas, but those scores are not included in our local branch system.
• Scores entered via the national site do not appear immediately in your points tally as these have to be manually downloaded from a central CAMRA server by the branch Pub Campaigns Co-ordinator. Such scores will be downloaded at least once a month, immediately prior to the monthly branch meeting.

How do I submit NBSS Scores?

Scores can be submitted on-line via the CAMRA National site https://camra.org.uk. Recording a score is very quick and easy.

To submit scores via the national site, you need to be logged in with a CAMRA membership number, the option to enter scores is not available to guests. First find the entry for the pub. Then, if using your mobile, select the “Submit Beer Scores” tab. If using a standard computer, use the “Submit Beer Scores” panel at the right hand side of the screen. Follow the instructions.

How do I edit my NBSS Scores?

If your score is in the local system you can log into the Members’ Area of this website and select the ‘NBSS Cards’ option from the menu, and then scroll down and click on the score you want to edit.

If you entered the score via the National system you may be able to edit it via https://pubzilla.camra.org.uk/beerscoring/, then clicking on scores, then selecting to show details. The Pubzilla screens are not mobile friendly and also they may not work as expected if the beer is not in the brewery’s core range.