Queen Street bar wins real ale title

Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre CAMRA members have chosen Bar 19 as their Winter Pub of the Season. 
 The Queen Street bar had been short-listed several times before winning.

Presenting the award, the CAMRA branch pubs officer Rick Pickup said: “We like to award pub of the season to bars that offer something unusual, and providing top quality real ale in a part of town where it is not readily available definitely fits the bill.

“Bar 19 is, on the face of it, a bar where you might not expect to find CAMRA members, but it is a pub that serves incredibly good cask ale.

“It’s perhaps the one bar in town where you can find people drinking real ale in the early hours of the morning.”

Accepting the award, landlord Lee Burner said: “I’d like to thank everyone who has supported us – both the regulars that drink here every day and the CAMRA members who support the beer festivals we run twice a year.”

Lee, who has managed pubs in three different CAMRA branches (and now won awards in all of them), has been promoting real ale at Bar 19 for the past three years.

He describes the venue as a “drinking pub by day, nightclub at night.”

The shots and cocktails more readily associated with Queen Street bars are available, alongside the constantly-changing range of guest ales.