Almost 200 pubs across the Westcountry are today celebrating national recognition in an annual guide regarded as the beer drinker's bible.

The Good Beer Guide has been produced every year since 1974 by the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) and features the best 4,500 pubs for real ale in Britain.

In all, 189 pubs in Devon and Cornwall made the pages of the guide for 2011, which is designed to celebrate those which serve the best traditional pint of ale.

The list includes 26 new entries in Devon, including the Anchor Inn at Chudleigh Knighton, the Kings Arms at Winkleigh, the Pig on the Hill at Westward Ho! and the Torridge Inn at Black Torrington.

The eight newcomers in Cornwall included the Queens Arms at Botallack, Rann Wartha at St Austell and the Rising Sun Inn at Kingsand.

Another pub new to the list is the Red River Inn at Gwithian, near Hayle in West Cornwall. Aaron Osborne, landlord of the pub for the last six years, said: "It is like the Michelin food guide of real ale pubs and I'm absolutely stoked that we have made it.

In contrast, the New Inn at Kilmington, near Axminster, which was built in the remains of a Devon longhouse dating back 700 years, was celebrating being included in each of the 38 editions of the guide – one of only seven pubs nationwide to do so.

The guide also highlighted the staggering 767 breweries that are now operating in Britain – four times the number than when Camra was founded in 1971.

Good Beer Guide editor Roger Protz said: "The real ale revolution goes on in spite of all the problems facing the brewing industry such as the often anti-competitive behaviour of the large pub companies, the heavy and continuing rise in tax on beer, grossly unfair competition from supermarkets, and the smoking ban in pubs."