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Where can I get a decent pint?

Check the Yorkshire (West) section of the 2012 Good Beer Guide.

Wakefield District entries are in Ackworth, Alverthorpe, Castleford, Heath, Healey near Ossett, Horbury, Ossett, Overton, Pontefract, South Elmsall, Wakefield City, Walton and Wintersett. You know that the entries in this publication are genuinely chosen by dedicated drinkers of real cask ale, not by pubs lobbying or paying a fee to the compilers. Order one from CAMRA.
Come to our annual Beer Festival!
Try a Pub, Club or other non-CAMRA beer festivals.
DisabledGo - info on Public Houses and Bars in Wakefield District
Email us to request the latest edition of O to K, our branch magazine, (several sheets as .pdf files so you need to be on broadband really), or our Calder & Hebble Ale Trail which uses the 278 Wakefield-Halifax bus service, now viewable as a Picasa Web Album.
Look for window stickers saying that the pub has been in earlier years' guides. The competition for a placing is very fierce, and in the interests of visitors to the area, who need a reasonable geographical spread, not all good pubs in one town or city centre can have a place. Also where there has been a new licensee, selection is not normally allowed unless the licensee has been in place for more than 6 months.
Look for handpumps. Properly kept cask ale demands a licensee who knows his or her stuff. But in some pubs there's the annoying trick of leaving old handpumps in place whilst dishing up no-skill-needed nitrokeg or "smooth" to the punters. In a few places real cask ale is still served by electric pump but it's hard to distinguish from keg. You may also find real ale dispensed directly from the cask by gravity, but most often you'll be at a beer festival!
Visit the Official Badsworth Village Website and read about "Real Ale Around Badsworth".
Wakefield CAMRA tries to keep abreast of the ever-changing pattern of pub and brewery ownership and maintain up-to-date databases of the District's pubs and clubs.
More and more clubs are becoming a proud part of the Real Ale Scene: you can often be signed-in on a CAMRA Membership Card. Also by joining a local club that offers real cask ale you're not only supporting them and getting beer at a very good price, but also if they're CIU Affiliated, your membership card will have you welcomed at hundreds of clubs across the country.
If in Central Wakefield follow the Wakefield City Pub Crawl which our Albert Bradbury first devised for visitors to our 2001 Beer Festival, but since up-dated.
Pub Food Reviews that have appeared in O-K magazine.
Bernie Brewsniffer will try and help you track down a favourite brewer's product.
We also offer an Oasis Guide which may save your life if you find yourself in a place where the big cactus plants push up and the tumbleweed rolls along. (mixed metaphors there!)