This week our branch is celebrating its 50th birthday. Our inaugural meeting was on the 10th of August 1975, at the long since closed Nutley Hall pub in Reigate. The story goes that an earlier meeting was to be held at The Home Cottage in Redhill, however so many people turned up, an impromptu decision was made in the car park to organise a new meeting at the Nutley Hall, where branch was formally conceived.

We were then known as the Reigate and Redhill branch, a name which stayed until 1998. At the annual general meeting that year the decision was made to rename the branch to East and Mid Surrey as we thought described the area we covered much better.

At our 2025 August branch meeting, held at The Bell Inn in Outwood, the current committee raised a glass to celebrate our golden anniversary.

To help celebrate, Titsey Brewing Co. are brewing us a 5.0% bitter to mark our special birthday. This should be available to purchase in selected outlets early to meet mid September. Our big thanks to Maria from The Golden Ark Micropub. in Selsdon for helping to facilitate this.

This year's REDHILL BEER FESTIVAL theme also celebrates our 50th birthday, and we have our own official celebration planned for the 13th September at The Pilgrim Brewery Taproom, now the closest venue to The Nutley Hall.

Pictured below is Andy, our Social Secretary, helping start the brew of our special birthday bitter at the Titsey brewery.

It was a evening of double celebrations at The Three Horseshoes in Cranleigh on Monday 14th July 2025. Not only has the venue won our coveted Branch Pub of the Year award for the second year in a row, but 2025 has also seen them win the Surrey County Pub of the Year award as well. We handed over the certificates as part of our monthly branch meeting which was also being held at the pub.

Some of the highlights on the bar on the evening were Harvey’s Sussex Best and Downland Low Battery and Devil’s Dyke Maple Porter.

Congratulations to landlord Peter Slinger and his team on their achievement.

Pictured below is Peter receiving the two certificates from Rob Wellls, our branch chairman.

We’d like to offer our congratulations to The Kingswood Village Club for winning our branch Club of the Year award for 2025. This marks their eighth consecutive win and thirteenth since 2011. We attended on the evening of Monday 16th June 2025 to present their certificate and conduct our monthly branch business meeting.

The club normally has two hand pumps in use, and on our visit we found Dark Star Hophead and Shepherd Neame Spitfire being served.

CAMRA members are always made very welcome in the club, and simply need to show their membership card to gain entry.

Pictured below are Simon from the club’s committee and Rob Wells, our branch chairman, handing over the award.

The evening of Tuesday 3rd June 2025 saw members of the East and Mid Surrey branch gather at The King & Queen in Caterham on the Hill, to present the pub with an award to recognise their hard work in appearing in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide for ten consecutive years.

Being a Fuller's pub, you can regularly find London Pride, ESB and Dark Star Hophead on the bar alongside an always interesting guest ale. On the night we visited, we found Cow Down from Stone Daisy, a micro brewery from Salisbury.

Pictured below is Rob Wells, our branch chairman, handing over the certificate to Kathy, the landlady at The King & Queen.

We are greatly disappointed to hear of planning permission being applied for to change the use of a gem of a pub in our own branch area, this being The Bell at Withybed Corner in Walton-on-the-Hill. If successful, it would see The Bell converted to a single dwelling, as applied for in Reigate and Banstead Council's Planning Application Summary Ref. No. 25/00577/F.

The pub (known locally as The Rat) is of significant interest which, although not a listed building in itself, is one of only 300 pubs nationwide to have been awarded the CAMRA Pub Heritage Group’s highest three-star rating as having “a pub interior of outstanding national historic importance”.

To lose this pub would represent a significant loss to community it serves but also to an important piece of our social history.

If you feel as strongly as we do about this planning application and seeing this historic pub disappear for ever, please submit a comment to Reigate and Banstead Council Planning Committee, by following the link below:

https://planning.reigate-banstead.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=summary&keyVal=STPYUNMVLP400

Comments must be submitted by 23rd May 2025.

Together we may be able to help save this historic pub for the enjoyment of future generations of pub-goers.

Saturday the 26th April 2025 saw us meet up with our friends and neighbours from the Croydon & Sutton branch of CAMRA for a tour of three different micropubs which transverse the two branch areas and are all helpfully linked by a single bus route, Metrobus service 409, which runs hourly Monday to Saturday daytime between Selsdon and East Grinstead via Caterham and Godstone.

Our first stop was The Golden Ark Micropub, Selsdon where we found 4 real ales - Frome Great Uncle John's Prohibition, Vale Cloud Nine, Milestone Italia and a 6% old ale from Beerblefish called Peculiar Fish.

We then moved back across the border into our own branch area and visited Ales On the Green, a newly opened micropub on Warlingham Green. There we found 3 real ales on the bar - these were Wantsum Imperium, Tiny Rebel Dirty Love and Californian Spring from the very local Titsey Brewing Co..

Our final stop was The Radius Arms in Whyteleafe where we took the opportunity to present a special award to the owner, Vince, for his continued and consistent excellence in the provision of real ale.

Some pictures of the day are featured below and feature our Treasurer, Martin Longhurst, handing over the award to Vince.

Sad news reaches us that Steve and Anne, better known as the Godstone Brewers, will be hanging up their hydrometers this spring after ten years of brewing at Flower Farm, setting up Fresh Beer Friday in the Godstone Brewery Taproom along the way.

According to their website, the final Friday tap room session will be on the 28th February 2025. The branch wishes Steve and Anne the very best for the future in whatever it may hold.

The 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the CAMRA East and Mid Surrey Branch will be held at 19:30 on Monday 17th February 2025, in the meeting room at the Old House At Home, 24 West Street, Dorking, RH4 1BY.

The 2025 agenda and minutes of the 2024 AGM are now available to download from the Members' Area of our website. You will need to enter your CAMRA website login to access this page. Copies will also be available at the meeting.