Seven Stars, Canterbury

Official site of Seven Stars - www.great-british-pubs.co.uk

Official site of Seven Stars - www.great-british-pubs.co.uk

Another historic City pub which fails to live up to its potential. The layout is as described by PSM, below. There was no real ale available this visit, and when we asked we were in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t served here. The barmaid was rude and unhelpful, while the locals, if that’s what they were, were unfriendly. It was noisy, noisome and no fun at all. Only one craft ale on, Meantime IPA, plus some bottled ales. No point in ploughing a furrow back here.

Obviously a very old building, but once inside you find a rectangular bar that has been completely remodelled and refurbished in a semi-modern modern style. Busy with quite a young crowd on a Sunday afternoon, with TV football dominating. Also has a pool table at one end. Three of five handpumps in use, from which I went for the Beartown Peach Melbear (£3.60 which was a hazy ("but the whole barrel has been like this") as it was peachy.

The Seven Stars is another historic pub, close to the cathedral, with a large Tudor style façade. Entering into the main bar area, you find yourself in an L shaped room with the bar extending along the rear wall to the right. There is quite a bit of seating in this front part of the pub, including some standard tables and chairs arranged in two rows to the left of the front door and plenty more under the front windows opposite the bar. The rear section, which extends further back past the left hand end of the servery, is dominated by a pool table and offers limited seating options. The pub seems very sports orientated, with numerous screens showing various football fixtures on different channels. When we arrived, they were showing a match between Southampton and Fulham and a Spanish fixture between Real Madrid and Barcelona. In a sign of the times, the commentary came from the foreign fixture, rather than the Premier League game. Décor included various posters for upcoming events, plus one from the Gadds Brewery called 'Pub Stops of Canterbury', which was in the style of the tube map and detailed numerous pubs throughout the city. When the football finished at around 7pm, some excessively loud music started up, so we polished off our pints and went elsewhere. Four hand pumps were dispensing Sharps Doom Bar, Moorhouse White Witch and Wychwood Hobgoblin, plus a real cider. The White Witch was in great shape and I thought the bar staff were a friendly bunch. This pub won't suit everyone, especially if there is a football crowd in, but I enjoyed watching a couple of games here over the course of the weekend and a decent pint was a definite bonus. Not as interesting as some of the city's other old houses, but not a bad option to add to an extended crawl.