Secret Cask, Edenbridge

Situated near the Southern end of the main road through Edenbridge, this is a pleasant two-room micropub set in a couple of former shop units. You enter into the right of the two rooms, which is a compact space with only enough room for a couple of tables. The servery is on the rear wall, although in reality it comprises the tiniest of counters, wedged into what looks like a widened former doorway, with the room behind acting as a bit of a storage space and office space, beyond which the cellar room can be found. The walls here are painted in neutral colours and an impressive pump clip display covers much of the wall space around the bar area, demonstrating a commitment to predominantly local breweries. A beer board to the right of the bar lists the full draught ale selection and other boards detail cider, wine and other such options. The front windows have a load of tatty old paperback novels lined up along the sills but otherwise, there’s not all that much else of interest on display. A door to the left takes you through to the adjoining room where two rows of tables and chairs have been set up in a quarry stone floored room with tongue and groove panelled walls in the same neutral colour scheme and a long shelf down the end wall which holds various decorative items. Hops line the ceiling and windows in both rooms, but I much preferred the bar area to the somewhat blander side room. Despite only being the first week back open following the latest lockdown, there were already five ales available – Brumaison English Pale, Pig & Porter Stone Free Fruit Pale, Kent Green Dwarf Green Hopped Pale, Bexley BOB and Gun Zamazana. My pint of the English Pale was a satisfying drop and the Stone Free Fruit Pale was also in good condition. The landlord was pretty chatty and told us that the building has served many purposes over the years, most recently as a florist, but also as a video rental store, during which time the two adjacent shop units were knocked through. This is a decent enough micropub that adds something new to the town’s pub scene and made stopping off worth the effort. The friendly service and well kept, interesting beer from local brewers mark the place out for a return, but the rooms could do with a bit more character to make the place stand out from the crowd a bit more.