CHORLEY pubs got more than pint-sized praise after a new book revealed Lancashire's pints are the cheapest.

The latest edition of the Good Pub Guide says the average price of a pint of bitter in Lancashire is just £1.59.

By comparison, a pint in London will cost beer-lovers a whopping £2.11!

And Chorley laid claim to the pub selling the cheapest beer in the guide.

The Black Dog at Belmont enjoyed national publicity as word spread that the Holts bitter there costs just £1.16 a pint.

Landlord Jim Pilkington said: "I try to keep the prices down because drinking is an expensive hobby. Now we're just pleased to be named as the best value for money."

He said breweries were partly to blame for pushing up beer prices. "I just think they are being run by accountants who want to make a certain percentage profit," he said.

But the costs faced by individual pubs was also a factor in the price of a pint.

"My rates have gone up more than double," he commented. Jim -- whose pub has now featured in the Good Pub Guide for 16 years -- said: "When I first came to this pub in 1985, a pint of Holts was 65p here.

"Holts has been going since 1849 and is still a family company, and they are trying to keep prices down."

As well as coming tops for beer prices, the pub guide also praised a whole barrel load of other aspects of the county's pubs.

It said Lancashire -- along with Greater Manchester and Merseyside -- has "some great pubs," adding: "The area scores very highly for value, with a high proportion of entries here gaining our Bargain Award for good food prices this year.

"Helpings are also commonly very generous indeed."

Ebury Press -- publishers of the guide -- also put together a 'bad pub' report, showing that out of all the pubs that did not make it into the guide, nearly one third (30 per cent) served unappetising food, one quarter had indifferent, unpleasant or rude staff and almost one fifth (18 per cent) served badly kept beer or offered a poor choice.

Other customer concerns were that pubs were unacceptably scruffy, had undergone 'dire refurbishment', or were too noisy.

Dirty bars and toilets, messy gardens and slow service added to the list of public house horrors.

The Good Pub Guide -- listing more than 5,000 top pubs for beer, wine and food in the UK -- is now available in bookshops priced £14.99. RAISE your glasses: Black Dog landlord Jim Pilkington toasts pub regular Colin Tootell's 79th birthday with a pint.