THE Press’s pub columnist has won a national award.

Gavin Aitchison, who writes the weekly Pints Of View column and is also the paper’s news editor, won the prize for best writing in regional media in the British Guild of Beer Writers annual awards.

His entries included articles on the Golden Ball in Bishophill, York’s first community-owned pub, and on the establishment of a hop plantation in East Yorkshire, which has allowed brewers to create beer consisting entirely of Yorkshire ingredients.