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The Thirty-Nine Steps Brewhouse, Broadstairs
Broadstairs
CT10 1LR
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 6½ of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Pub SignMan left this review about The Thirty-Nine Steps Brewhouse
This is a fairly large brewpub with a very good town centre location and an adjacent deli store. The pub has a pleasant traditional interior which is dominated by dark wood fittings including the wall panels, servery, ceiling and floorboards – it’s a very ‘brown’ room! Huge windows to the front and right allow plenty of light in and are topped with nice stained-glass panes, with fairy lights hung over the tops. High tables and stools run around the windows, providing the majority of seating options in this main bar area, whilst a centrally positioned pillar has a circular ledge around it, served by more high stools and a few normal tables and chairs fill the gaps through the rest of the room. A large servery stands to the rear with a traditional counter and canopy plus a white tile bar back flanked by high tongue and groove wall panels which also spread out across the ceiling. To the left of the bar, there is a very nice, highly decorative glass partitioning screen which seems to act as the entrance to the Broadstairs Brewery, although there was very little action taking place when we visited. Stairs lead up to a mezzanine seating area with William Morris-style wallpaper, a bar billiards table and a few tables and chairs offering limited overspill from the main room. The pub takes its name from the John Buchan novel, which was itself named for the staircase leading down to the beach from the St Cuby private hospital in Broadstairs where Buchan was convalescing whilst writing the novel. As such, a large poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s movie adaptation can be seen in one window and several smaller posters are dotted elsewhere around the pub. A decent funk and soul soundtrack could be heard playing quietly in the background, but with virtually no other customers in on a Saturday early evening, this had clearly been turned right down and would’ve been inaudible were there more customers present.
Sadly, there were no Broadstairs beers available at the bar, so I was instead faced with a choice of Gadds Dark Conspiracy and No 3 and Dark Star Plateau. I opted for the No 3, which was a nice enough pint served by a very bored looking barmaid who had little to do other than peruse her phone all evening.
This seemed like it could potentially be a decent pub, but it definitely suffered from being so quiet when we visited, leaving us in a large, open-plan empty space with no real atmosphere to speak of. I’d like to think we just timed our visit here badly, but this was my least favourite pub of our six-pub crawl around Broadstairs and St Peters and would be the one I drop from any subsequent visit.
On 25th March 2020
- rating: 7
[User has posted 3114 recommendations about 3114 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Just a quick pint, then I'm off left this review about The Thirty-Nine Steps Brewhouse
This was my first visit to the second incarnation of the Thirty-Nine Steps, having visited the former micro-pub nearby three years ago. The new premises are much larger, with additional seating and a bar-billiards table on a small mezzanine, and the large windows on two sides counteract the generally dark decor. No sign of its own beer yet, so I found Bass, Perry St Pale from Iron Pier (£1.50, half), New Wharf Pale plus a couple of ciders available from the eight handpumps along the gantried servery. Also has a good selection of craft beers and other ciders on the keg taps.
On 17th August 2019
- rating: 7
[User has posted 8117 recommendations about 8117 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Real Ale Ray left this review about The Thirty-Nine Steps Brewhouse
The Thirty-Nine Steps started out as a micropub a few doors down, until they relocated to their new and bigger premises, which was once a former deli. I would now class this as a brewpub, as at some stage they will be brewing on site, plus they serve food and have some keg options and also have live music at weekends. The interior consisted of the bar area positioned along the back wall with mix of various seating arrangements around the ground floor from high tables and chairs near the bar. There's also a few low tables and chairs and a chesterfield settee. The floor was boarded throughout and the walls were timber clad, along with the ceilings in a toffee colour. The main feature for me was the small seating area up the stairs, with William Morris wallpapered walls.
Eight pumps on the bar, serving four ales and two ciders, on our midweek visit. The beer choice was Iron Pier English Pale, Adnams Lighthouse, Wantsum Green Hop and Redemption Big Chief. They also had Beavertown Gamma Ray on keg. We went for the Iron Pier and Wantsum, both were in great shape.
On 19th November 2018
- rating: 7
[User has posted 3382 recommendations about 3381 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Aqualung . left this review about The Thirty-Nine Steps Brewhouse
This is a trendy bar consisting of a single room with a wooden floor. There is also an upstairs area that I didn't look into.
The bar has six hand pumps which had one unused, a cider and I noted three beers which were Wantsum Green Hop, Kent Black Mirror and Heritage Charrington's IPA. I went for the Black Mirror (£3.30) which was in quite poor condition.
For a place that describes itself as a brewhouse or ale house to be selling beer that's going off isn't very good.
On 26th October 2018
- rating: 5
[User has posted 2143 recommendations about 2143 pubs]