BEER lovers have raised £3,000 for the Oxford Children's Hospital Campaign by visiting more than 700 Oxfordshire pubs during a 15,000 mile pub crawl that lasted two years.

The Black Country Ale Tasters spend their weekends and holidays travelling around the UK sampling beers in local pubs.

The ale tasters have earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records after visiting thousands of pubs in England, Wales and Scotland.

But during the past two years, they tried to visit every pub in Oxfordshire as part of a fundraising drive for the children's hospital, which is based at the John Radcliffe site in Headington.

Pete Hill, 50, from West Bromwich, along with four friends started touring pubs in the early 1980s and have now visited more than 13,000 hostelries countrywide.

On Friday, the group was at the Red Lion in Wolvercote to present a cheque for £3,000 to representatives from the Chox campaign.

Mr Hill said: "We thought we would only be able to raise £1 for every pub by asking for donations so we are over the moon that we have managed to raise £3,000 for a great cause.

"We usually just have a half in most pubs unless there are some real ales there that we really like. And we always have a designated driver who is not drinking alcohol.

"We have tasted hundreds of different beers across Oxfordshire and now we will be moving onto our next county, which is Powys in mid-Wales.

"Sometimes we went to cocktail bars, and trendy wine bars and hotels - it wasn't just pubs.

"We've had a great time and I reckon we travelled about 15,000 miles around the county in just over two years.

"We got quite smashed a few times along the way."

Mr Hill is usually joined on tour by his dad Joe Hill, 76, John Drew, 43, Karl Bradley, 43, and Kelvin Price, 30.

"My partner Dawn doesn't mind me going off for the weekend because it gives her a bit of peace," Mr Hill added.

The Red Lion sells Banks's beer. The Ale Tasters started their unusual odyssey in 1984 when they decided to visit every single Banks's outlet in the Black Country.

Alison Barnes, a spokesman for the Oxford Children's Hospital Campaign, said: "Yet again we are impressed with the originality of fundraisers.

"These chaps have raised a considerable amount of money for us from doing something they obviously enjoy."

During the past two years the ale tasters visited 747 pubs in the county.

The £30m children's hospital opened on the site of the John Radcliffe Hospital in Headington last month.

FIVE FAVOURITE PUBS

  • 1. New Inn (Witney)
  • 2. Bird in Hand (Henley)
  • 3. Elephant & Castle (Bloxham)
  • 4. Radcliffe Arms (Oxford)
  • 5. Falkland Arms (Great Tew)

TOP DONATIONS

  • 1. George (Littlemore) £100
  • 2. Plough (East Hendred) £96
  • 3. Bure Farm (Bicester) £40

TOP HOTELS

  • 1. Lamb Hotel (Burford)
  • 2. Foxcombe Lodge Hotel (Boars Hill)

BEST VIEW

  • Bishop's Blaize (Sibford Ferris)

BEST HISTORICAL PUBS

  • 1. Ye Olde Reinedeer (Banbury)
  • 2. North Star (Steventon)
  • 3. Rose & Crown (Oxford)

TOP SIX BEERS IN OXFORD

  • 1. Hook Norton Gold
  • 2. Fullers Discovery
  • 3. Jennings Cumberland
  • 4. Titanic White Star
  • 5. Archers Golden
  • 6. Wye Valley Butty Bach