An award-winning Royton pub has one more to add to its collection following last week’s JW Lees Pub of the Year awards.
The Puckersley Inn came home with the prize for Best Beer Ambassadors at the annual JW Lees awards, having previously won awards for best food pub and best regional pub.
For the last eight years, landlord Jessica Brady, 35, has been at the helm, along with her fiancé Danny Kernaghan, 40, who came on board just after the pandemic.
They have been running the pub alongside raising a young family.
The pair take pride in curating the beer selection at the Puckersley Inn and making sure it's stored correctly, so winning this award is a “big deal” – particularly for Danny who treats the cellar as “his baby,” Jessica told The Oldham Times.
She added: “We take massive pride in our cellar area, the way everything is kept, the cleanliness, the line cleaning. Everything is always on point.
“Although the food side is massive for us, and it's great – everything about the pub is important in terms of bringing the community together – but actually beer is where it all started. That is where pubs began.
“It's a big deal for us to make sure the beer is always on point because you can go to any pub on any street and get a pint, but we need to make sure that ours is the best.”
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Their pride and enthusiasm for the beer they serve extends to the staff.
Jessica said: “Sometimes you get customers who have their own opinion on how things should be served, but all the staff are really well trained on not just how they pour the pint, but how it should taste, how it should be kept in the cellar.
“They all work really hard, all the time, alongside Danny and myself, to make sure that it is great.”
“The awards are not just about us. The staff work so hard and we are so grateful to them -- it's just a shame that we can't take them with us!”
Following on from their awards success, Jessica and Danny are looking forward to visiting the JW Lees brewery to brew their own beer to sell at the pub.
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The Puckersley Inn in Royton is located at 22 Narrowgate Brow and open daily from 12-11pm, 12am on Saturdays.
It offers an extensive food menu, as well as a specials menu, and hosts live music every Saturday evening.
There were four other Oldham winners at the JW Lees awards 2025. These included Woodhouse Gardens in Failsworth, run by Jessica’s mum and dad Cate and Steve Nutter, which came home with best regional pub, the Bank Top Tavern, which won the best entertainment pub award, the Tandle Hill Tavern, which won the award for most improved and Halfway House, which won the award for charity champion.
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