All power to the Engine Room

On Friday, I joined a bus trip to East Grinstead, with half a dozen members of West Kent CAMRA.  The idea was to visit the Engine Room Bar & Tap, a relatively new establishment, located in the heart of this Sussex town, The bar is located in the basement of an old mill building, at the top of a hill, behind London Road, which is one of East Grinstead’s main shopping streets, and is accessed by a footpath leading up between some of the shops.

The Engine Room, Brewery Tap and Bar specialises in cask ale and ciders, together with craft beers, and artisan spirits. It also stocks an assortment of bottled and canned beers for both in-house consumption and takeout. The pub is reached via an internal set of steps and is a downstairs labyrinth of small seating areas which are good for small groups to hold conversations, or for those who wish to escape the world outside, for a short while. It offers, between five and seven ever-changing gravity-served cask ales, four craft beers, plus around six or seven ciders. There is also live music, once a month, on Thursday evenings.  

  Our group travelled over by bus, to help the pub celebrate its 4th anniversary,  the occasion being marked by a festival featuring dark and strong beers. The event was billed as the Dark'n'Strong Beer Festival, and it represented my first actual visit to the Engine Room. I say "actual", as I had viewed the bar's exterior on a previous trip to the town with my son Matthew, who now works in the town. Our bus was 20 minutes late in departing from Tunbridge Wells, which meant we arrived in the town shortly before midday. It was a pleasant journey over along a route which took us to the south of the main A264 road, through the villages of Groombridge, Withyham, Hartfield, and then, eventually up into Forest Row, just to the south of East Grinstead. As this area lies at the edge of Ashdown Forest, it is characterised by some attractive countryside of rolling hills and woodland, plus plenty of picturesque settlements.

Knowing that the Engine Room has no kitchen, and that no food would be available, most of the party piled into a café just off the High Street.  I decided to give this a miss, as it was rather too soon after my own breakfast, so leaving my friends to enjoy their meal, I made my way down to the pub. I had seen a note on the Engine Room’s Facebook page, that an outside caterer would be providing some “street food” for the festival. It turned out I had got the day wrong, as I discovered when I arrived at the pub, and found my way down into the bar.

Most of the Engine Room is either below ground, or very close to it, and by the pub’s own admission is not particularly suited for people with mobility issues. I was one of the first customers of the day and found myself presented with a range of 12 different cask ales, all but one of which were dark beers. This suited me as I'm a big fan of old ales, porters, and to a lesser extent, stouts. Apart from a couple of beers from Thornbridge Brewery, the majority seem locally sourced. With such a range on offer I decided to go for half pints, and tried a porter from Vibrant Forest, plus a stout from Thornbridge.

I then decided that some food would be a good idea, which is when I learned that the “street food” would only be available on Saturday. Sensing my disappointment, the bar staff told me that it was fine to bring in food purchased from outside the pub, so headed out to the nearest Greggs., which was just across the road. As I arrived back at the Engine Room with a sausage roll, and a steak bake, I bumped into my friends, who had finally turned up following what sounded like a fairly substantial “brunch.” Another group from Tunbridge Wells had also arrived, having caught the bus that departed an hour later than the service we arrived on.

The next couple of hours were spent chatting with various members of the two groups, interspersed by visits to the bar. I won’t list off the beers I drank, as whilst they were all good, I ran into that typical beer festival situation where, after a while, they all start tasting very similar to one another. They were all priced at £4.60 a pint, although for seasoned festival goers, tokens were available at five pints worth for £20. They were valid across all three days of the event, but this wasn’t much use to “casual” visitors, like ourselves, although a couple of people did end up sharing tokens between themselves.

I departed shortly after 3pm, as my son Matthew, who works at the local branch of  well-known hardware store, had offered me a lift back to Tonbridge. He was due to finish early that day, although as it happened, he got stuck in a meeting which delayed him somewhat. This allowed me time to call in at Armstrong's, an excellent, independent off license that I discovered on a previous visit to East Grinstead. Amongst the bottles of Samuel Smiths beers that I picked up, was a bottle of the legendary Yorkshire Stingo. This beer is hard to come by, especially in the south-east, so despite the six pound price-tag, I treated myself to a bottle.

  After receiving a further text message from Matthew, I ended up
diving  into the Ounce & Ivy Bush - the local Wetherspoons, which is opposite the shop where he works, and took advantage of their refillable coffee offer. We travelled home along the A264 road towards Tunbridge Wells, after what had been an enjoyable day out. This was despite the inclement weather - a mix of bitterly cold winds and driving rain, but as it is still early March, perhaps this should be expected.