Halfway House re-visited

I’ve written before about how I’ve gone off large, CAMRA style beer fests, whilst continuing to enjoy pub beer festivals, or similar, small-scale events. Speaking of which, one particular event provides a real attraction, and particular affection for me, and here I’m talking about the beer festival, held twice-yearly at the Halfway House, just outside the village of Brenchley. It’s been several years since I last attended this excellent festival, so on Friday I decided to make up for the deficit. August Bank Holiday being almost a week early (due to the 25^th being the last Monday in August), really threw me, and neither I nor Eileen had made any plans.

My decision then, to attend the event on the opening Friday, was made very much on the spur of the moment and was made with virtually none of the forward planning I usually put into such outings. For example, I hadn’t been in touch with any friends or associated from CAMRA, and whilst travel arrangements had been notified in advance, there seemed little consensus, certainly on the local WhatsApp group, as to which bus(es) to go for, and who exactly was.  The specified bus was the 12:15 Hams Travel service from Tunbridge Wells station, but as I had a few things to sort out at home first, I ended up taking the next bus, scheduled to depart at 14:10.

It was already running 10 minute’s late, and was then beset by the inevitable roadworks, this time in both Matfield and Brenchley. Worse still I had to endure two complete strangers, sat a couple of rows behind me, discussing their various ailments and medical conditions – a trait that doesn’t seem confined to just the elderly! That was definitely an occasion when a pair of earphones would have come in handy! 

I was losing the will to live by the time the bus deposited me outside the Halfway House, and with the time at almost 3pm, I had quite some serious catching up to do. The festival was in full swing, when I arrived, but first I popped into the pub to “top up the lager barrel” as an old CAMRA friend used to say. Being jolted around on a bus, was putting unwanted pressure on my bladder, so a nice clean pub toilet was most welcome. It was also a pleasant contrast to the “trough” – quite literally a re-purposed, farmyard drinking trough for cattle, that represented the facilities provided for male festival goers.

A group of friends from West Kent CAMRA branch had arrived before me, but had taken a different bus out to Matfield, walked down to Hopbine at Petteridge, in order to check it out, and then walked along to Halfway House. They followed the well-trodden, cross-country route between the two pubs, that many of us have used in the past. The news from the Hopbine was positive which is good to hear during these difficult times for the pub trade. I joined the group in one of the barn-like structures, sited towards rear of site. There was plenty of seating, although if truth be known, I would have preferred to have sat outside – so did a couple of others, but that’s another story.

With an impressive lineup of 60, gravity served beers, racked up in the outside barn, plus an additional 10 in the pub, cask drinkers were certainly spoiled for choice. At the outside bar, there was none of the glass deposit nonsense that is so much a feature of CAMRA events, and no wretched tokens either - just good old-fashioned cash or card if that’s your preferred method of payment. 

I know apologists for CAMRA style events claim that punters like to take a festival glass home with them, after the event – a souvenir, but there must be cupboards and cabinets throughout the land, groaning with the weight of yet another “festival” glass.  They eventually end up at the charity shop, which is where a load of mine are going, next week! Others argue that tokens help overall security, plus centralise cash collection and storage. I did notice at the last GBBF I attended (2019), that bars were sensibly taking cash, or card, so perhaps things have changed on a national level, within the Campaign.

The Halfway House beer festival is a very laid-back event, which on the surface, appears more or less to run itself. Behind the scenes though, a lot of detailed planning and organisation goes into the event, which has now been running for 22 years. With two festivals a year, the current event represents the 46^th beer bash for this family-run, country pub, and whilst much of the organising might seem like second nature, I suspect there’s a highly polished, well-oiled machine, behind the laid-back approach.

My only look inside the pub, the other day, was that visit to the Gents, but for those unfamiliar with the Halfway House, it is well-known among pub enthusiasts, for its emphasis on cask-conditioned beer. The casks are stored in a temperature-controlled room directly behind the bar, and beer is dispensed through extended taps that pass through specially designed wooden barrel facades of the back wall of the serving area. This arrangement ensures that the beer is served at an optimal temperature and in its most authentic form—directly from the cask. The pub itself lies in an idyllic countryside setting, between the villages of Brenchley and Horsmonden. With a large and extensive garden to left of the pub, that leads down into the bottom of a valley, bucolic would be the best way to describe the Halfway House.

Another characteristic of this easy-going, laid-back event, are a number of live groups of musicians or solo acts that provide an entertaining, but not intrusive musical background to the event. The final ingredient, of course, is something solid to help soak up all that beer, and once again the Halfway House delivers, with items from the pub’s main menu available during normal opening times for the kitchen, supplemented by barbecue items on the Friday, plus Hog Roasts on both Saturday and Sunday.

What about the beers themselves then? Well, with 70 cask offerings to choose from, visitors to the festival really are spoiled for choice, but in common with most other festivals of this size and scope, I do find a slight tendency for them all to start tasting the same, especially after three or four pints, drunk as halves. I normally start with the lower strength stuff, and then work my way slowly upwards, but Friday was something of a blur. With a two-hour interval between the last bus and the penultimate one, my friends who had been there longer than me opted for the latter bus. This meant drinking up and heading along to the bus stop, outside the pub along with a couple of dozen other people. We all managed to squeeze on to the 16:46 bus, and whilst I would like to have stayed longer, it was probably the sensible thing to do. The last bus departs at 18:32, and I could just imagine the ensuing chaos if an even larger number of punters all tried piling on to that final service of the evening.

It was probably just as well that I left when I did, my companions certainly thought they were doing the right thing, but it did mean missing out on a few more beers, plus some barbecued food. I shall plan things differently next time, but whether I shall revert to walking there and back, as was my wont prior to the pandemic, is open to question. As in previous years, the event attracted a diverse group of patrons who appreciated the beer, sunshine, barbecue, and convivial company. Held in the expansive pub garden, surrounded by picturesque rural scenery, the Halfway House beer festival embodies a quintessentially English experience, and for many, including myself, often provides an ideal conclusion to an excellent summer.