The Gardener's Arms, Lewes

Love this pub and would certainly be a regular if I lived in Lewes. Great choice of ales and very reasonably priced to, they even offer a Camra discount. Always very busy and a good friendly crowd which is'nt always the case with pubs in Lewes. This is a proper pub a little rough around the edges but that makes it what it is, much better pub then the nearby John Harvey Tavern and The Snowdrop.

Certainly the Lewes pub with proper alternatives to Harveys, although I wouldn't quite go along with Alph's 'vast array' unless a)he visited during a beerfest or b)I missed a separate bank of beer offerings. Another Lewes crawl, another failure to make notes, sorry, but I recall 6or7 handpumps including Harveys Best, Darkstar Hophead, Sharp's Special Ale, Milestone Rich Ruby, & Moles Black Rat cider. Easily one of the pubs in town to 'play a joker' (have a 2nd pint) during a crawl.

This is a former Whitbread pub that has been a free house for around 25 years now. The biggest problem with it is that it is so small. Happily it wasn't rammed on my Saturday afternoon visit but I still chose to sit on one of the seats in the alleyway outside as the carpeted area at the rear had a television on and the more basic front bar was busy. The whole building is quite long but fairly narrow. The bar has six hand pumps which had one unused, Cottage Dogfight, Harvey's Best, Bath Special Pale, Dark Star Carafa Jade and Brass Castle Black Forest Stout. I went for the Carafa Jade (£3.60) which was in excellent nick. Overall this is a good pub but due to the small size of it can be uncomfortable.