The Two Brewers, Dartford

Please Note: This review is over a year old.

Roger Button left this review about The Two Brewers

Named in recognition of the two breweries that once occupied the site behind the buildings opposite (now part of the park), the Two Brewers is an attractive town centre pub but with all the problems that town centre pubs are often associated with.

The building is probably around 400 years old, with a terrific Victorian tiled façade and a weather boarded side and back. The interior was totally revamped about 20 years ago bringing out many of its original features. The low beams have claimed many a 6 footer who forgot to duck and there is an old central fireplace containing a range. The rear section has some exposed brickwork that looks pretty ancient but these days the general décor is quite tired, tatty and worn. A large section of the main bar area has been devoted to a sofa lounge area whilst an intrusive pool table takes up one side of the pub and is the first thing you encounter when coming through the street entrance. The pavements outside the entrances often contain a huge collection of discarded fag ends and at the rear is a car park that contains a rather sorry attempt at a beer garden with a couple of benches on a scruffy piece of turf overshadowed by the multi-storey car park next door.

The pub has so much potential but is unfortunately a magnet for some of the more undesirable elements in town and you can usually expect a volley of limited vocabularly from both sides of the bar. Instead of trying to attract a more civil crowd, the pub regularly lays on cheap entertainment (DJ’s, karaoke etc) which is generally aimed at the wrong end of the scale. Footy fans are catered for with both Sky Sport & ESPN screened.

On the beer side of things, the pub goes through long spells of being an ale free zone, largely because the bulk of the regulars lean more towards strong lagers. A fresh attempt has now been made to introduce Real Ales and Old Speckled Hen and Doom Bar are now available with the quality being pretty decent for a pub with little ale experience and prices are also very reasonable.

It is a step in the right direction and it may be that the pub has recently been taken over (again) but over the last 20 years there has been a succession of poor managers albeit with initial good intentions and unless steps are taken to clear out the more unsavoury customers, it will never be the sort of pub that the lovely building deserves to be.

On 7^th March 2011 - rating: 3
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