How many different pubs did you visit last year?

Veteran blogger the Pub Curmudgeon recently published a post establishing that last year, he visited 128 different pubs. He went on to say that whilst this figure was considerably more than in the previous two years of lock-down, it was still less than the totals achieved in the four years preceding the pandemic. In order to try and gauge the experiences of others, Curmudgeon went on to conduct a Twitter poll on how many different pubs people had visited over the year. The poll attracted 511 votes, with the results divided into four separate bands, depending on the number of pubs visited.

You can see a detailed breakdown of these figures over at Curmudgeon’s blog, but what is interesting was his attempt to tie them in with, not just his own experiences, but with those of others. These were people who he either knows personally or is familiar with via his blog. The post included an interesting piece about how he became interested in pubs, after visiting them first with his father and former school friends, and then how his pub going experiences widened during his student days, at university.

During Mudge’s early years, a major factor in his choice of pubs was the ability to sample different beers, and this certainly mirrors my own experiences. With the tied house system very much the order of the day, and only a small number of nationally distributed beers available, one had to travel in order to find certain brews, and that was all part of the fun. My own pub visits had a similar motivation, back in the day.

As the beer scene changed, and brewery ownership of pubs became less prevalent, the close-knit connection between local ales and local pubs began to break down, and with far more beers distributed across the country, it is now not uncommon to walk into a free house, or an outlet owned by one of the national pubcos and be totally surprised at what is waiting on the bar.

The uncertainty of not knowing what beers you might come across, led to Mudge becoming more interested in the pub itself, rather than the beers it stocked; a position I can certainly empathise with. I am also in complete agreement with his quest to seek out pubs that feature on CAMRA’s National Inventory, and have been visiting as many of these unspoiled gems as I can.

The post attracted a healthy number of comments, with correspondents revealing the number of pubs they’d visited during 2022. Some of the figures were in the stratosphere, but these were largely confined to people who “tick” the CAMRA Good Beer Guide, (the ticking is usually achieved by marking the pub off in the guide, with a coloured highlighter pen). This group go out of their way to visit and “tick” off as many GBG pubs as possible, but it does require a certain type of individual with the drive, dedication, and the time necessary to complete this pursuit. The rest of us will have our own reasons for choosing pubs to visit, which more often than not will be centred around the places we frequent over the course of a normal year, interspersed with holidays, excursions or even the odd business trip.

So, with no bragging rights about numbers, or a desire to impress, I was more than happy with sharing my total with  the others who’d responded to Mudge’s post. In total, I visited 81 different pubs last year, which was a lot more than I initially thought. It took me a while to total this amount up, as I don't normally record the pubs that I visit over the course of a year. I resorted to checking back on my blog, as this is as good an indicator as any, but it did entail quite a bit of trawling back through the 123 posts that I published last year.

Like the other correspondents, I’d obviously visited some of these pubs on more than one occasion, either because they were local to me, or because they were places, I'd been to before and wanted to return to. Apart from local pubs, a pattern did emerge regarding my visits, with the numbers being boosted by days out to locations such as Bath, Cambridge, London, and Sheffield, along with several bus trips, either undertaken alone, or in the company of local CAMRA members. The latter were specially organised outings, jokingly referred to as “old codgers” bus trips. There was also a short family break to Barry Island, in South Wales, which resulted in a few more pubs being ticked.

Breaking down the figures, I'm pleased to report that 28 of the 81 pubs, were places new to me, meaning they were places I'd never set foot in before. This reveals my spirit of adventure and discovery is still alive and kicking, although I'm not sure whether I'll beat that total this year. January hasn’t got off to a particularly good start, with only a half dozen visited so far. We've also booked a lengthy foreign holiday for later in the year which will obviously impact, negatively on pub going opportunities in the UK.

Counting up the numbers remains an interesting exercise and is also a bit of fun. Fortunately, I don't have deadlines to meet or targets to achieve, and I'm rather glad that I don't. Instead, I can just enjoy stepping into new pubs, in different parts of the country, as and when the mood takes me, so to end, here are my top ranking “ticks” from 2022.

In no particular order, the pubs are – Larkin’s Ale House – Cranbrook; Star Inn – Bath; Fat Cat – Sheffield; Free Press – Cambridge; Nelson Arms – Farnham; Waterworks – Rye.

In addition, there were a few “also rans”  that came in slightly lower down the list, and these were – Bell – Bath; Bull – Benenden; Bath Hotel - Sheffield.

The Little Gem shines through, once more

Continuing with my theme of Friday pub outings, I decided to visit a pub that I remembered, from when I lived in Maidstone. This would have been from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. The pub in question is the Little Gem in the village of Aylesford. As its name might suggest the Gem, is a smallish establishment, which at one time, was reputed to be the smallest pub in England.

I first became familiar with the Little Gem in the late 1970s, when I moved to Maidstone, from London, when I bought my first house. Not long after moving in, I made contact with the local CAMRA branch, and began going along to their social meetings. They were obviously short of volunteers, because within the space of a year, I was co-opted onto the branch committee and began playing a more active role within the organisation.

Now for some reason, several prominent members of the committee had rather a downer on the Little Gem, with some even accusing it of being a “beer exhibition” pub. By that, they meant the pub was stocking far too many cask ales, certainly in relation to its size, and there was a danger of then being unable to turn them all over, thereby compromising quality. I understand this argument far better today, than I did nearly 40 years ago, but it did mean that the Gem never reached the heady heights of appearing in the Good Beer Guide, and received precious little support from CAMRA.

I don’t think the management of the Little Gem were that bothered, as it continued to remain popular with its own band of devotees., and six years after joining the committee of Maidstone & mid-Kent CAMRA, I severed my official links to the branch, when I moved to Tonbridge. I kept in touch with several members, on a personal basis, as they had become good friends, but over time I became less and less familiar with the pub scene, in and around the country town.

This meant I was completely unaware the Little Gem had closed its doors for the last time, back in 2010, and to this day remain ignorant of the reason for its closure. Time though, marched steadily on, and the next decade the Gem remained empty, unloved, and uncared for. I discovered this for myself, in 2016, when I dropped my car off for a major service, at main Skoda dealer on the Quarry Wood Estate, just off the A20. 

Whilst the work was being carried out on my vehicle, I took a walk into nearby Aylesford, for a look around, and also to kill some time. I was also looking for a tearoom where I could grab some non-alcoholic refreshment, and it was then that I walked past the Little Gem. The doors and windows were all boarded up, and the place looked all sad and neglected (see above). I did a some digging, when I got home, and discovered that the building’s owner, who did not live locally, had applied to the local authority for change of use to a private dwelling. There was also an asking price of £230,000 on the building, as it stood.

Several months’ later, I was heartened to come across a Facebook campaign, called "Saving the Little Gem." Over the course of the following years, I kept an eye on the group, which had 900 followers at the time. Then, just when progress seemed to have ground to a halt, the Gem was bought at auction, in 2019. Even better was the news that owner had been granted permission, from the local authority, for the building to be turned back into a pub. A year down the line, and with no signs of work being done, the building once again changes hands, and this time it was bought by local brewers, Goacher’s, who are based at Tovil, just outside Maidstone.

With a substantial amount of renovation work to be carried out, to restore this 12^th Century pub in keeping with its Grade II listed status. The Little Gem finally reopened for trading 18 months or so ago, and after reading some good reports, but also with my own fond memories of the place in mind, a visit was long overdue. So, last Friday, I finally got round to ticking this aptly name “gem" off from my “must visit” list.

Although I have a bus pass, it was far easier to take the train to Aylesford, as there is a direct service from Paddock Wood (one stop away from Tonbridge). The train travels up along the picturesque Medway Valley Line, which follows the course of Kent’s largest river. I arrived at Aylesford station shortly after midday, and from there it was a 20-minute walk into Aylesford village. I experienced a short wait at the level crossing, before making my way across the ancient stone bridge, which fortunately is no longer used by traffic. Before turning right into the village, I paused briefly to look at the George – a former coaching inn which closed during the 1970s. I read recently that when the pub closed, its licence was passed to the Little Gem which, at the time, had been a tea room.

It wasn’t far from there to the Gem, and once inside, it was heart warming to see the pub restored to its former glory. The building dates from 1106 and has plenty of the exposed beams and low ceilings, one would expect from an early 12^th Century constriction. A step down into the pub, through a low doorway, leads directly into the main room and bar, situated on the ground floor. A large inglenook fireplace, adjacent to the entrance, provides a warm welcome in winter, although the fire was struggling to provide much in the way of heat, when I called in.

Upstairs there is a split-level balcony room, on a mezzanine floor, overlooking the ground floor bar. Although small, this upper seating area makes a good addition to the main bar area below. The bar counter is sited to the left of the fireplace, where cask ale is dispensed from two hand-pumps on the bar counter, and from two or three chilled casks on gravity dispense on the bar back shelf. The Little Gem represents the third tied house for Goacher's and serves a good selection of the company’s beers.  I started off with an excellent pint of Fine Light, followed by an equally acceptable pint of the brewery’s Old Ale. At 6.7 % abv, this rich, dark, and warming strong ale was a full three percentage points stronger than the Light, but in view of the weather, was just the thing.

There were just a handful of drinkers when I arrived, but it didn’t take long for the bar to fill up. The majority of customers were middle aged, but not exclusively male, and there were a number of canine companions in attendance as well. The seasoned barmaid took it all in her stride and manged to find time to answer some of my questions, along with listening to me enthusing about how well the pub had been restored, and how little it has changed.

The only criticism I would make was the temperature inside the place. On a freezing cold day, the open fire was always going to struggle to keep the pub warm, and whilst I did spot a radiator in the corner, I can understand why the management were reluctant to use the central heating. Putting my coat back on was sufficient to ward off the cold, and the purchase of one of the Gem’s homemade sausage rolls, also helped warm up the inner man.

I could have stayed for a third pint, but with the Old Ale almost equivalent to two pints of Fine Light, I allowed discretion be the better part of valour. I only just made it back to the station in time, as the level crossing barrier was once again closed. Fortunately, luck was on my side for once, and my train was running a few minutes behind schedule. I still haven’t worked out quite why the Victorian engineers, who constructed the Medway Valley Line, sited the station so far outside Aylesford itself, but there are plenty of other examples of this, throughout the south east.

Despite this conundrum, I’d managed to experience a pub that had been brought back from the dead, and enjoyed a brisk walk, both ways, in the process.