Some Folkestone pubs, for you to enjoy reading about

After the previous introductory article about the former channel port of Folkestone, here’s the post you’ve all been waiting for, namely some narrative about the pubs and bars my friends and I visited in the town the other Friday. The first pub of the day, and in my view the best, by far was the Bouverie Tap an independently run bar-cum restaurant, close to the former Bobby’s department store, and just five minutes’ walk from the Leas Cliff Hall with its cross-channel views. 

The Bouverie Tap opened in 2017 and expanded into the neighbouring premises three years later. Specialising in local cask ales, fine wines, continental beers, Kentish Gins and premium spirits, a range of fine food is also available, made freshly with locally sourced ingredients. The walls of the pub are adorned with plenty of interesting vintage memorabilia, which includes a number of old brewery advertisements. As far as the cask offerings were concerned, there was a Pale Ale from Pig & Porter, plus two offerings from Titsey Brewery. I haven’t particularly rated Titsey beers in the past (titter ye not!), but my pint of Leveson Buck was excellent, an opinion shared by several of my companions.  

We gave the Radnor Arms, just round the corner a miss, as the plan was to call in on way back to station – spoiler alert, we didn’t! Instead, we walked along cliff top, with its views out across the English Channel, to France, and ended up in Bayle area of town, where the parish church is situated. This quiet and peaceful area is the original centre, of Folkestone, when it was just a small town, perched up on the cliffs, overlooking a small haven.

A bit of confusion, and even dissent surrounded the Guildhall, the second pub on our provisional list, as half party called in, whilst the rest of the group headed off elsewhere. The dissenters were of the opinion that the pub is tied to Greene King, when in fact it is a Punch outlet. It certainly looked appealing from the outside, and after checking on What Pub, I am now kicking myself for missing it, as I discovered that, up until 1987, the pub originally called the Globe. This was an old haunt of me and my school chums, as the place for a pre-gig pint at the nearby Leas Cliff Hall. I think it was the garden area in front of the pub that threw me, as I don’t remember it being there.

Greene King IPA plus Harvey’s Best were the beers on sale, but bearing that in mind, I was surprised when the branch chairman dismissed the nearby British Lion, because it only sold Young's and Ringwood (where is that brewed now?) The Lion certainly looked a proper traditional pub, as demonstrated by the photo of its attractive exterior. Several of us would have liked to see for ourselves, but the British Lion is on my list for a future visit to Folkestone.

The second pub for many of us ended up as Kipps' Alehouse, a shop conversion occupying a prominent corner position at the top of the Old High Street, and Bayle Street. Kipp’s is a bit more than just a micro-pub, as it stocks a wide variety of bottled craft beers and draught international lagers, alongside two or three cask ales, served by gravity, from a chilled cabinet behind the bar.

Unfortunately, the pint of Crispin Amber Ale from Mad Cat Brewery was decidedly past its best, but it was exchanged with good grace, plus an apology from the landlady, for a pint of Tonbridge Countryman, instead. There is quite a Bohemian feel to Kipp’s but given the wide range of foreign beers that it stocks, it might be struggling to turn over the number of casks that it does, but then it does feature in the Good Beer Guide – go figure, as the Americans would say!

Onwards, and upwards, and a third pub selected, but only for those who didn’t mind a walk, was the East Cliff Tavern, a traditional backstreet terraced pub, that has been owned by the same family since 1967. This sounded more like it, but unfortunately it was closed, despite the advertised midday opening time. Disappointed, we decided to visit one of the pubs near the fish market instead, and the Ship Inn, with its views across the inner harbour, turned out to be a real cracker, and a definite “proper pub” at last. The Ship dates back to the 1930’s, although there has been a pub of the same name, on the site since the early 1700’s.

Given its location, outlook and the wall-to-wall sunshine we were experiencing, it was no surprise to find the place packed, but we still managed to find a couple of tables. London Pride, Doom Bar and Old Speckled Hen, were joined on the bar by Harbour View, a 3.9% house beer, produced exclusively for the pub by an unknown brewery, that I was unable to find on Untappd. In charge of proceedings, were a couple of "old school" landladies, keeping watch from behind the bar. Their no-nonsense approach soon became apparent when a couple of “stripped to the waist” builder types, who’d been hanging around outside, were told to put a shirt on, if they wished to be served!

A number of our group had lunch at the Ship, with fish and chips being the obvious choice. The food looked good, and the service was quick, but three of us had already decided to visit Sandy’s Fish & Chip Shop, just a few doors along. This meant eating our fish and chips outside, and taking our chances with marauding seagulls, but fortunately, these pesky birds were conspicuous by their absence, unlike as in other resorts such as Brighton and Hastings!

It was time to join up with the rest of our party, who we’d been keeping in touch with via Whats App, so after a climb back up into the centre of the old town we reached the Beer Shop Folkestone. As its name implies this establishment is another shop conversion that is home to a specialist beer bar. It majors on keg, bottled and canned beers, with one or sometimes two micro-brewery cask ales served from taps on the rear wall. My choice of beer was Hopping the Tasman, a well-hopped pale ale from Gravesend’s Iron Pier Brewery. We sat in the bar’s long narrow room which, as you can see below, provided a good photo opportunity.  

We then crossed the road to the Samuel Peto, a Wetherspoon's pub named after renowned railway engineer and builder of Nelson’s column, Samuel Morton Peto. This entrepeneur used part of his fortune to fund the building, which began life as a Baptist church in 1874. The pub’s former function is still very much in evidence, as it features the original stained-glass windows, various memorial plaques of local dignities, and a hand-painted ceiling of fluffy white clouds across a blue sky. 

The church once contained a large pipe organ, and the façade of these pipes have been retained at the far end of the balcony. There are even two pulpits upstairs, and this is where we sat with our drinks, looking out over drinkers on the ground floor below us. The pub wasn’t that busy, although at 4pm on a Friday afternoon, one might have expected a lull. I went for a pint of Moose River from Hop Union Brewery, which turned out to be yet another hoppy pale ale.

We headed back into the town centre, to Chambers, our penultimate stop, and quite a quirky one at that. Established in 1998, and still owned by the same people, Chambers is a spacious cellar bar, close to the bus station. It is also a Good Beer Guide regular, and it’s easy to see why, with its carefully chosen range of local cask ales, craft beers, ciders, plus a range of directly imported continental lagers. The bar consists of several inter-linked sections that extend for some distance beneath an upstairs licensed coffee shop.  

After the fierce heat of the day, it was refreshingly cool underground and a nice place where we could sit down and relax. The cask offerings were Adnams Lighthouse and Hop Fuzz Fallout, yet another, fruity and citrus-driven, pale session ale. I was starting to feel a bit jaded by this time but stuck it out to the final pub of the day, the Firkin Alehouse, just a hop, skip and a jump away. Founded in 2012, the Firkin promotes itself as Folkestone's first micro-pub, with up to four cask beers, and up to six ciders all served on gravity from a temperature-controlled cellar room. There was an emphasis on Kent micro-breweries, which was borne out by my choice of Smash, an English pale ale, from Kent Brewery.

The beer seemed very similar in makeup and character to the previous one, although my Untappd notes describe it as probably the best beer of the day. This might just have been the beer talking, as it had been quite a long day. We sat outside, in a paved area at the rear of the pub, before drifting, in dribs and drabs back to the station. The trains heading back towards London were packed, or at least the high-speed one was. My companions and I waited for the standard South Eastern train which formed a direct service back to Tonbridge, albeit stopping at every station along the way.

The day had certainly proved an interesting one, and for someone like me, the chance to reconnect with the Folkestone I remember from my youth. It also provided a useful guide to which parts of the town were worth revisiting, and which to avoid next time around.