The Rose & Crown (JD Wetherspoon), Maldon

I turned up here just two days after it opened. It's an original pub that apparently has been completely revamped. It follows what seems to be their current template for conversions with some areas for dining at the front and the bar at the rear of the building. The area with the bar has a mix of tall tables and booths by the windows. It was fairly busy on my Thursday morning visit with a mix of people in for breakfast or a drink. Many of the staff seemed to be new to the pub trade and were far from battle hardened so it was slightly chaotic. The bar has two banks of six hand pumps with just the Ruddles doubled up then Old Hooky and Adnam's Ghost Ship available soon. The rest were Abbot, Doom Bore, SA Gold, Brentwood Gold & Summer Virgin, George's Brickfield IPA, Nethergate Too Good To Go Down and Adnam's bitter. This was a fair mix of national and Locale beers but too many ABVs of around 4% or less. I went for a new beer for me the Brickfield IPA (£2.49) which is an IPA in the Greene King sense of the word being a very average ordinary bitter which wasn't helped by being quite hazy. This may be another case of the staff being inexperienced. £2.49 for a standard guest is pricey for the chain but not outrageous. I thought this was a reasonable new Spoons that I'm sure will improve as the staff get the hang of things. They do have competition though as there are a few Grays pubs in town of which I tried two and they had better kept beer where the price differential was a lot less than the pound plus a pint found in other parts of the country.

now a J D Wetherspoon pub

Official site of The Rose & Crown - www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk