The George & Dragon, Sevenoaks

This is a pleasant, well presented village pub that extended a warm welcome to me when I visited on a roasting hot summer's day. The front door takes you directly into the bar area, with the servery opposite the entrance, in the left-hand side of the room. The bar has a tongue and groove panelled counter, blackboards hung across a metal framed canopy and a modern mirrored bar back. The right-hand side of the room is full of seating options, including a low-slung Chesterfield sofa flanked by a couple of armchairs at the front, a long table with many chairs to the rear, and some basic tables and chairs further to the right, where a large brick fireplace dominates the end wall. The whole pub has been decorated in a turquoise colour scheme with lots of fake beams and potted plants, which looks a fair bit better than it sounds. A TV screen on the back wall remained switched off throughout my visit, and had an unusual mural of a packed shelving unit beneath it. Another, much smaller fireplace can be found to the left, next to the bar, with a huge clock above - in fact, it's so close to the bar stools that I can't imagine it ever gets used. There's a second room through a door to the left here, but it had been fenced off, with the pub dog trapped on the other side, so was clearly not available for the public to use. I called in here on the off chance they might have some decent cask options, so wasn't too let down by a choice of Wadworth 6X and Purity Mad Goose, with a third pump not in use. The barmaid poured a good pint of the Mad Goose and engaged in a good bit of chat with me and a regular who had been propping up the bar. Aside from him, there were only two other customers, although the hot weather may have meant punters had headed elsewhere for the day, or perhaps some were out in the beer garden, which I failed to explore. My visit here was slightly random, inasmuch as I could've picked any pub in the village to kill some time in before making the long walk to the station, but I think I chose fairly well, as this was a nice little pub with friendly people and a decent drop of ale. Whether any of the other pubs would've been an improvement is unclear, but this did the job and would represent a fairly safe bet should you ever find yourself out this way. Date of visit - 2nd June

Rather the opposite of the nearby Rose & Crown, this one has a refurbished exterior that would suggest 'gastro-pub' but the main and side bars and rear seating areas are more 'local' than one might expect. The partly covered rear beer garden is located up something of a ramp, but the generally attractive appearance is somewhat spoiled by the AstroTurf surface... Disappointingly, only one of a total of five handpumps was clipped, and it turned out that the recent delivery of Wadworth 6X still needed more time to settle. With no keg bitter of any sort available, made do with a bottled London Pride (£4.60), but I was just unlucky on my visit.