In tne garden of England (Hampshire, Sussex and Kent)

Andrew Catchpole looks at the brewers of Hampshire, Sussex and Kent

Evidence of brewing among the pastoral landscapes and rolling downs of South East England stretches back into the Middle Ages and beyond.

Even today a visit to Kent and parts of Sussex reveals a very visible reminder of England’s brewing history. The countryside is spiked with old oasthouses and, occasionally, the glorious sight of fields rigged high with hops on their bines can still be seen.

The hop farms, sadly, have dramatically dwindled in number since their Victorian heyday. Barns and oasthouses have been converted into commuter homes on land where once cockney hop-pickers famously pitched down for their working country holidays.

Brewing itself, though, is undergoing something of a dramatic revival in the region, albeit mainly on an artisanal scale. Twenty or so small but high quality operations have sprung up in the last decade alone.

There are brewpubs such as the excellent Swan on the Green in Kent, where you can watch village cricket while downing a Fuggles Pale; or the Kemptown brewery behind the Hand in Hand in Brighton – one of Britain’s smallest pubs with little room to swing a pint of Black Moggy Mild.

Up a notch are many excellent microbrewers. Kent boasts Whitstable Brewery (try the oysters and Oyster Stout), Millis Brewing, Ramsgate and Hopdaemon (which supplies own-label beers for the British Museum, Science Museum and Southwark Cathedral). Sussex counts Filo Brewing, 1648, Gribble, Arundel and Rectory Ales (established in 1995 by the Rector of Plumpto.....

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By Andrew Catchpole

Section : Regional Focus

Page number : 30