A Day In Maidstone

I spent the day in Maidstone last Saturday. Our local CAMRA branch had organised a crawl around some of the county town's best pubs, so I tagged along. I had a particular reason for attending though, having lived in Maidstone during the early 1980's. I bought my first house there, and it was the town I settled down in following my return to Kent after a six year absence. I was especially keen therefore to re-visit some of my old haunts and to see how much things had changed during the intervening quarter of a century.

The plan was to start at a pub called Drakes, an old half-timbered building that dates back to the 17th Century. It was formerly known as the Lamb, but towards the end of my stay in Maidstone was given the full renovation treatment by then owners Whitbread, and was re-named Drakes Crab & Oyster House. Decorated with a bare-boards, exposed brick-work and old beams theme, and lit largely by candle-light, Drakes proved especially popular with the younger generation. That was 25 years ago, and looking at the outside of the pub yesterday, not much in the way of renovation appeared to have been carried out since. I say outside, because that's as far as we got, for despite being advertised as opening at midday, the pub remained well and truly closed.

Eventually we gave up waiting for it to open its doors, and made our way instead to Druids. On the way we passed the large Fremlin Walk shopping centre, with the brick entrance arch forming all that now remains of the huge Fremlins Brewery that once occupied the site. The brewery itself had ceased production back in 1972, following the takeover by Whitbread, and a decade or so later was pulled down to allow a modern distribution depot to be built in its place. I remember watching the wrecking ball and bulldozers at work and thinking what a waste of a fine brewery, who's ales were once justifiably promoted under the banner of "Kent's Best". At least the brewery buildings had lasted a lot longer than the characterless, shed-like depot, which was torn down a few years ago to create yet another identi-kit shopping mall.

I digress; Druids is a former Hogshead Alehouse that is now run by Greene King. Apart from the usual GK offerings of IPA, OSH and Abbot, there was the extra choice of Holdens Golden, Okells Olde Skipper and GK's seasonal ale for spring. Myself and a friend opted for the Holdens, as this is a beer not often seen in this neck of the woods. Unfortunately it was on the turn, so after handing it back we plumped for the Okells instead. This was a pleasant enough beer, but was not particularly outstanding. However, I will need to get used to it when I visit the Isle of Man next month.

The next port of call was the Muggleton Inn, one of two Wetherspoons outlets in the town, and one of my favourite JDW's. This tasteful conversion of a large cavernous former insurance building occupies two floors. Unlike many of the company's outlets, where service can be a bit slow, we didn't have to wait long to get served. We also found ourselves a table, as several of us wanted to eat. I enjoyed a very good pint of Grainstore Triple B, but there was also an interesting beer from Saltaire on offer called Rye Smile, which is brewed using rye malt. I had a coffee after my meal, before we moved on to the next pub on our itinerary.

The Flowerpot lies on Sandling Road on the route out of town. I remember it as a Truman's pub that offered the full range of the beers produced during the company's short-lived return to the real-ale fold. They were, from memory, rather good and even included a dark mild. I think it must have been some time during the late 1980's that Truman's ceased brewing; a great shame as they were the oldest brewery in the country, and made great play of their foundation date of 1666 in their advertising.

These days the Flowerpot is a free-house and a very good one at that! The pub was Maidstone CAMRA pub of the year for 2009, and whilst we were there we learned that it had also won this prestigious award for 2010 as well. What I remember most about the Flowerpot was the dark-stained wood paneling which gave the place a bit of a gloomy feel. This has now all been painted a creamy colour which gives the pub a much more bright and cheerful appearance. As one would expect from a POTY entry, there was a range of interesting beers on. These included Gold Star from local brewers, Goachers and OTT from Hog's Back, an excellent dark beer, but at 6% perhaps not the wisest beer to be drinking on a pub crawl. The beers that caught my eye though were a couple from a brewery called Bays. Even our well-travelled former branch chairman had to admit this was a new one on him. Together we tried them both, with the 4.3% Gold scoring higher, in my opinion, than the 4.7% Breaker. Both were good though, and it was encouraging to see a pub offering something unusual for a change. Some of our party also sampled the Flowerpot's food, and had I known that it would be as good as it looked I too would have forsworn the standard JDW fare for something a little bit different.

We spent several hours in the Flowerpot; some of us wanted to sample the full range of the pub's beer, some wanted to stay and watch the rugby, whilst some wanted to do both. By the time we left it was getting dark and starting to rain. We made our way to the Society Rooms, Maidstone's other Wetherspoon outlet. This was my first visit to this relatively new JDW and the contrast between this and the Muggleton could not have been more striking. The latter is a characterful and stylish old building, whilst the Society Rooms are an unashamedly modern glass-fronted building, housed beneath an imposing office block. Strangely enough though, the concept works and what's more the pub is a surprisingly popular meeting place. I spotted Batemans Salem Porter on sale, and as I rarely see this excellent dark beer my mind was swiftly made up. Others in our party went for the Gaelic-sounding offering brewed from peated malt, from Hilden Brewery. Just like drinking Laphraiog said Scottish Iain, but the sassenachs amongst us weren't convinced.

There was just enough time for one final pub before catching the train, or bus, home, and it was an absolute gem. The Rifle Volunteers is one of only two pubs belonging to Goachers Brewery. I remember it from its days as a Shepherd Neame house, even though I have re-visited it several times since it swapped brewery. It is an attractive, street-corner local, constructed out of blocks of locally quarried ragstone. Inside there is a single plainly-furnished bar, with three handpumps plus, for those that want it, a Hurliman Lager fount. Three Goachers beers are served: Fine Light, Real Mild plus Crown Imperial Stout. There are no noisy fruit machines, juke box or other electronic disturbances, and the proceedings are expertly looked after by the original landlord whom I remember from the time I lived in Maidstone.

I tried the Fine Light and the Imperial Stout; both were in excellent condition, which is hardly surprising given the pub's regular listing in CAMRA's Good Beer Guide. Shortly before leaving, we were joined by several members from Maidstone CAMRA. They had been on a bus trip down to Lewes, which explains why they were unable to join us earlier in the day. Unfortunately we weren't able to stay and chat as long as we would have liked, owing to train and bus departure times, but it was good to see them nevertheless.

So ended an excellent day out, enjoying a few of the County Town's best pubs. There were quite a few others, of course, that we did not have time to visit, but there's always another occasion when this can be done. For me the day was especially enjoyable, allowing me to re-visit several old haunts, plus one or two new ones.