The winners of this year’s Huntingdonshire CAMRA pub awards have been announced.

Huntingdonshire CAMRA will announced the winners at a presentation to the winning licensees on the opening day of its Booze on the Ouse beer and cider festival, which opens on October 19. The announcement took place immediately after the official opening by the mayor of St Ives, Councillor Phillip Pope, at 4pm.

The winners are as follows:

Most Improved Rural Pub - Royal Oak, Hail Weston.

Most Improved Urban Pub - The Ale Taster, St Neots.

Mild and Dark Beers Pub of the Year - The Falcon, Huntingdon.

LocAle Pub of the Year - The Royal Oak, St Ives.

Milds and Dark Ales Pub of the Year

CAMRA spokesman Paul Moorhouse explained: “CAMRA gives these annual awards to draw attention to pubs and clubs that operate in ways that CAMRA would wish to encourage, such as providing well-presented varied ranges of real ales including milds, dark ales and Locales – real ales sourced from local breweries.”

The Booze on the Ouse festival will be open from midday till 10:30 pm on Thursday and Friday and midday till 10pm on Saturday.

A range of around 70 real ales can be tasted over the course of the event, including CAMRA’s current Champion Beer of Britain, Church End Goats Milk and an extensive line-up of medal winning draught beers from CAMRA’s Champion Beers of East Anglia awards announced in January. The range will include draught milds, bitters, golden ales, stouts, porters, lagers, wheat beers and speciality beers with added ingredients such as raspberries and plums. Bottled real ale from the local Draycott brewery at Buckden will be stocked and there will also be a great range of real draught ciders and perries from producers in East Anglia , Kent, Somerset and Northern Ireland.

The festival will observe the 60th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik-1, the first artificial Earth satellite, launched by the Soviet Union in 1957. In commemoration, ‘Booze on the Ouse’ will feature beers and ciders with out-of-this-world names, including Nebula from the Midland brewery Black Hole and real ales named Moonrakers Mild, Orion, Northern Lights, Heavenly Matter, Juice Rocket V6 and Super Nova Pale Ale.

Soft drinks and food will be available. Commemorative glasses will include a legal measure of one third of a pint, enabling visitors to sample more of the beers and ciders. CAMRA is campaigning for more pubs to use these smaller legal measures.

The festival is supporting the Huntingdon area Wildlife Trust Group and will feature displays, pub games and other fund-raising activities manned by Wildlife Trust volunteers.

Admission to the Booze on the Ouse festival is £2 (£3 on Friday after 6pm).