The Patch, Lewes

The Patch is undoubtedly the place to go for craft beer choice in Lewes. There are a number of very decent pubs for cask enthusiasts in the town and so I like to think Lewes makes for a great place to head to for a town crawl, particularly when you add in the two immediately local breweries Beak and Abyss and now an outlet in the town for another local brewery Only With Love. The place is well described physically in the reviews below. More enjoyable of a weekend afternoon when the venue isn't being shared between those heading there for a sarnie or to work on their laptop and those there for its primary function! The line up on my latest visit (9 of the 10 taps were dispensing) was Atemporal Pale from Heathen Brewers, Chouffe Session, Point Blanc from Little Monster, the stout from Moor, Pilot - a cider from Ascension, Albion - a Helles from UnBarred, a rhubarb Belgian beer that I didn't note the details of, Vatted Porter from Burning Sky and a DIPA called Broz Night Out from the Veil brewery. Visited yesterday late afternoon and the venue became busy after a number that had headed to Lewes to attend a beer festival at Beak had to find some (indoor) alternatives as the weather resulted in the cancellation of the Beak festival. Am sure most if not all of those affected would have thought of Patch as their venue of alternative choice yesterday.

A pretty decent cafe craft bar, indeed it was covering both aspects seamlessly with both a couple of tables taken by drinkers and a couple more taken by office workers having a coffee and sandwich while glued to their laptops. Three seperate rooms that have been opened out into one long one with a good number of tables throughout. The walls had several framed prints for sale, presumably by local artists.There are ten keg taps on the back wall of thr servery with some decent top rate craft breweries represented, my choice was a Downlands Duvet Days which doubled up with a Stilton and something or other sandwich. Not a normal pub by any means but nice all the same.

The Patch seems to be the main place to go for craft beer enthusiasts in Lewes. By day, it is more of a cafe, but by evening it turns into a bar. That's not to say that the beers aren't available during the day, but that it's focus appears to be more on food during daylight hours. 9 craft beers were being served from Pohjala, Mad Squirrel, Beak (x2), Siren, Neoraptor, Deya, Silver Rocket & Vault City. There was also a nice fizzy cider (Ascension Aeronaut). We enjoyed our lunchtime visit sufficiently to return in the evening and try more of the craft beers. One of the beers had changed by then and both the daytime barman and the evening barman were clearly knowledgeable about their stock and the local drinks scene. I'm sure we'll be back here the next time we are in Lewes.