This Ancient Boro', Tenterden

Venerable hostelry, turned long-term Honeymoon Chinese restaurant, and now (almost miraculously, some 50 years later) reinstated as a pub again. However, although it has obviously been altered, it still comprises two rooms - one a narrow alehouse-style bar and the other more of a dining room for those partaking of the tapas-based menu. Excellent selection of nine real ales on gravity from the twin-shelf stillage behind the counter (with each cask having a cooling jacket), including Brumaison London Porter, Golden Shot and A Shot in the Dark (£3.60) from Range Ales and Severn Chocolate Stout. Welcome back!

Official site of This Ancient Boro' - www.thisancientboro.com

Official site of This Ancient Boro' - www.thisancientboro.com

After fifty years as a Chinese restaurant, this pub reopened as an alehouse and Tapas bar in July 2018. Now largely one room, the original two bar layout is still discernible.On entering, the bar is to one's left, with a double stillage holding ,on my first visit, nine casks wrapped up in cooling jackets. As is customary in such establishments, the beer and cider menu is chalked up,as is the food ofering. I consider gravity dispense the ideal way to serve southern cask beer,but I would like to see a temperature controlled beer store.Having said that, my glass of ADH-Me from Angels and Demons was first rate, and a worthy Beer of the Week. The landlord has previously run a couple of highly respected pubs in the surrounding villages,and is bringing a wide range of cask beers: I noted beers from Bradfield,Lowestoft and places more remote to improve choice in the wider Ancient Borough. I'm not really sure it could be called a micropub due to its former pub role, but it observes the spirit of the concept.A local asset.