The traditional pub fuelled by home-brewed, award-winning beer for more than a century

For the Beacon Hotel in Sedgley, it's something that has been a tradition, having won the Dudley and South Staffordshire branch of the Campaign for Real Ale’s (CAMRA) annual pub of the year award for the tenth time.

It's an award by CAMRA which carries great weight as it means it's seen as the best and is validation for the hard work by the owners and staff to keep the beer flowing and the pub as a place of welcome.

The 19th century inn is a landmark in the village, built in the 1850s, has been a place for a good pint since then, several of which are brewed in the adjacent Sarah Hughes Brewery and sold in great volume behind the bar.

Beacon Hotel Limited director Simon Massey says the two work together, with the beer brewed onsite being sold in the pub, something which has been happening for more than 100 years

He explains: "The brewery has been set up since 1921 when the Hughes family first took over the pub, with Sarah Hughes buying the pub and the brewery coming with it.

"This brewery had actually closed down in 1955, but then John Hughes reinstated it in 1987 and is still the owner of the pub and the brewery.

"It's still classed as a micro-brewery as we're only an eight-barrel brewery at a time, but it's enough for us to bring beer into the pub."

On entering the Beacon, which is a vivid white building on Bilston Street, you’re instantly caught by the smell of pork scratchings and the instant warmth of the pub in the main walkway, with sounds of conversations coming from each of the three rooms surrounding the bar and the larger back room near the beer garden.

The two rooms at the front contain wooden and leather padded seating and tables, as well as a fire place and pictures on the way, giving people a place to sit in peace with their pint, while the Smoke Room is a bigger, more elaborate room with more tables and seats.

The bar itself looks like it was fitted in around the building work of the smoke room and adjacent front room, with hatches allowing people to order from those rooms into the bar, while the main hatch is in the hallway.

In there, you’ll find the three Sarah Hughes beers that go by the gallon each month, the four per cent Amber, six per cent Ruby and five per cent Surprise, as well as guest beers from Bristol Beer Factory and Blue Monkey.

The beer choices reflect the independent spirit of the pub, with the only lager on sale being from Sam Smith’s Brewery, while there are also the essential bar snacks of crunchy pork scratchings, peanuts and cobs.

The Ruby is the headline beer, having won numerous awards CAMRA, and acting bar manager Kirsti Massey said the pub will sell multiple casks of Ruby a week, which equates to 144 beers in a cask.

Mr Massey says the three beers on the bar are standards for the pub, while beers like the award-winning Snowflake are seasonal favourites. He also speaks about the philosophy of the beers.

"The philosophy of the beers is that we brew them in the old traditional way and is also down to the quality of the beers as everything is recorded and followed through.

"The quality speaks for itself as we've won lots of awards for our beers, with Ruby being the main award winner and the one we seem to win with at most beer festivals.

"The Ruby is great because of the variety of flavours within the beer and it's quite a moreish beer as once you taste it, you'll want more.

"The Beacon Hotel itself is special because we've got generations of families which have grown up with the Beacon and they come back, with sometimes more than four generations sitting around the table in the pub."