Cornfield Garage (JD Wetherspoon), Eastbourne

This is a fairly uninspiring Spoons altogether. It has no interesting features at all and despite having 15 handpumps it sports a pretty dire selection of beers. Despite this on my 11:00 visit there were lots of older folk in and not really the same Daytime Spoons Brigade you see in London. There were just three "interesting" beers, Long Man American Pale Ale, Adnams / Stone Double IPA (which currently seems to be on sale at every single Spoons) and Arundel Gold. The Long Man beer was clipped on three pumps then GK Abbot, GK Ruddles, Adnam's Broadside and Young's Special were all doubled up. The remaining two had London Pride and Doombore. I went for the Long Man beer (£2.55) which was in reasonable nick but not up to the standard of the beers in the London and County which is a five minute walk away. It's also expensive compared to most London suburb Spoons, but 30p less than the Long Man Old Man tried minutes earlier in the London and County.

As the name suggests, the Cornfield Garage is housed in what was originally 3 shops and a car showroom. The building dates from 1925 and has been a ‘Spoons since 1999. Confusingly, the pub is also known as the Earl of Burlington in some quarters although there is no signage or indications of this at the pub itself. The interior is larger than it appears from the outside with a raised section opposite the bar, an extended rear section under a large skylight at the rear and a partly decked patio at the back. The décor is largely ‘Spoons by numbers, pleasant enough although the large air conditioning pipe snaking its way across the ceiling doesn’t exactly add to the aesthetics. I’d like to say it does everything that you expect from a Wetherspoons but I have to say they had the poorest selection of ales I have encountered in a mainstream Wetherspoons with little thought to guest beers. Present across the 15 hand pumps were Ruddles County, Abbott, Abbott Reserve, Adnams Broadside and Hobgoblin. On the plus side, breakfast was more forthcoming than the London & County which was my primary reason for calling in although I was lucky to grab a table even at the ungodly hour of 11am. It’s certainly not the greatest ‘Spoons on the planet and given what was available at the pumps, I would think twice about returning purely for the beers.

Lots of bitters and standard lagers are available as you would expect in a Spoons. My lager was cheap and rank as you would also expect in a Spoons. It's a big pub, but probably smaller than the average Spoons. It is very bright with a glass front and back that both open up and a large sky light. There is a courtyard out the back with a few tables and chairs. The staff should make more of an effort to clean the tables as the sea gulls that flock around the half eaten plates are loud and annoying. The staff may be slow in clearing tables, but I found them to be very efficient behind the bar. There is lots of seating inside and a couple of plasma screens that show Sky news. I was amazed at the amount of pissed up old boys in here, even for a Spoons. I saw a drunken Irish pensioner fall off his chair and take his table and Guinness with him after trying to hit a sea gull of a wall with a handful of chips…. Not something you see every day! There are better pubs in the area.

An uninspiring Wetherspoon's with not a lot of choice of real ales.Of course you could always have a pint of GK ipa for 99p.Not much other than that.