Beer old and new on the Romney Marsh

The old and the new came to together in perfect symmetry when I journeyed down to the Romney Marsh in Kent. My joyful task, at the invitation of the local branch of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, was to hand a framed certificate to the remarkable owner of a remarkable pub.

When news of the event hit social media, I received a message from the brewer at a new venture a few miles from the pub inviting me to drop in and taste his beers. This was my idea of a good Saturday.

First the pub. It’s the Red Lion in Snargate, an early 16^th-century ale house in a tiny hamlet of 102 souls. The pub has been owned by the Jemison family for more than 100 years and for around half that time it’s been in the hands of Doris Jemison (pictured above).

The certificate I handed her, in my role as editor of the Good Beer Guide, marked the fact that the Red Lion has featured in 30 continuous editions of the guide. It’s an astonishing achievement when you consider the guide lists 4,500 pubs, with thousands more clamouring to get in. She was also presented with a Pub of the Year award by the local branch of CAMRA.

It says a lot about the quality of the beer Doris serves, in particular the ales from one of the oldest micro-breweries in Britain, Goacher’s in Maidstone, founded in 1983 by Phil and Debbie Goacher. In this age of ever paler beers, they still brew several dark ales, including a delicious mild. Other local breweries, including Whitstable, are also on offer.

The Red Lion is a shrine to World War Two. The three rooms are decked out with war-time posters warning us that “walls have ears” and to watch out for German spies. There are calls to arms from Winston Churchill and many artefacts marking the work of the Women’s Land Army. Doris Jemison helped “Dig for Victory” in the Land Army that helped feed the nation during the war and she returned to the tranquillity of Snargate and the family pub at the end of hostilities.

She’s now in her late 80s and confines her duties to sitting in a corner of the pub, knitting and chatting to the locals. The pub is run by her daughter Kate, who ensures the Jemisons will still be in control for some years to come.

I handed over the certificate to Doris and then turned my attention to Matt Calais (pictured below), who whisked me off to his Romney Marsh Brewery a couple of miles away in New Romney.

Matt Calais is a former television producer and was executive director on Come Dine with Me. He’s also worked with Gordon Ramsay...and survived.

He’d been a keen home brewer for many years and he planned at some stage to give up the hectic hurly-burly of television and open a commercial brewery in the countryside. A visit to the Romney Marsh, with the lure of its wide-open beaches, fields, dykes and Martello towers, convinced Calais and his wife Cathy Koester that this was the place to base a brewery.

The money from the sale of their house in London enabled them to install a smart, modern brewery that opened in April. It was built by Dave Porter of PBC Brewery Installations in Bury, Manchester, who has designed more micro-breweries than most of us have had hot toddies.

It’s a 12-barrel kit, with mash tun, copper and water tank in attractive wood jackets. It’s a big piece of equipment and Calais is supported by his father, Brian, while Cathy Koester will join later in the year to help on the sales side.

The core cask brands at Romney Marsh are Golden (3.9%), Best Bitter (4%), and Amber (4.4%). The local water is hard, ideal for brewing pale ales and bitters.

Matt Calais loves hops. He’s not producing American-style beers with blistering hop attack and believes in the need for balance and drinkability. His Best Bitter uses Bramling Cross and East Kent Goldings, Amber has Cascade and Cristal while Golden is brewed with Challenger and Pilot.

Calais is also introducing a second golden ale called Marsh Gold at 3.8%. He uses Cristal and Bramling Cross and a taste proved the marked difference between the two golden ales as a result of the different hop varieties used.

He’s planning to add a porter and hopes to build sales further than his present outlets in Canterbury, Hythe and Rye. His beers are also bottled and Amber comes in bottle-conditioned format.

It was time to be transported back to Snargate – and it felt like moving from the 21^st century back to the mid-20^th. I had one last glass of Goacher’s and wished Doris and Kate Jemison good luck for the future and to take good care of the past.

*Print version Publican’s Morning Advertiser, 20 August 2015. Photo of Doris Jemison by Stephen Szmidt.