April 2023.
No hurry, here’s Sturry. That would have been the best title.
10 minutes out of Canterbury, we arrive in the land of weatherboards and lamb samosa (£1.20, 20% up on a year ago).
Broad Oak has its own heading in the GBG so I guess it’s a bit more than a suburb of Sturry, but there’s not a lot to it,
bar a new Guide pub and blossom.
And a samosa. What more do you need ?
I’d been considering eating at the Golden Lion, the Santed Lane Side Deewers sounded fun, but the fish and chips were ambitiously priced;
Beer for beer batter is expensive in Kent.
Oooh, a Sheps pub. Don’t get many of those in the GBG in 2023.
Actually, it looks closed, no cars in the car park, and only the light inside indicates a rare Monday opener.
Unchanged since 1969, a year notable for moon landings and the visit of the Grand Association of Fun Kings (Headquarted in Mansfield Woodhouse).
Homely and simple, just as BRAPA likes.
Which makes the pounding ’90s pop a bit out of place.
More surprises at the bar, where Master Brew is the sole beer. One beer is plenty…
Two gentlefolk having a lunchtime beer (“two more than LAST Monday” says the landlady“) planning their fish cake dinner; how do pubs keep going ?
And how does such a simple pub serving Master Brew get in the Guide ?
By serving a dry, rich pint (NBSS 3.5) that shows cask beer at its best, I guess.
I’d have stayed for a second, it was that good, but I had a train to catch. And even Cornershop couldn’t compete with that.
retiredmartin 
One beer might well be plenty, under certain circumstances, but not when it’s Master Brew!
How indeed did it get into the Guide?
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I guess it might sound facetious to say it got in the Good Beer Guide by serving good beer Paul !
It reminded me of a recently closed Sheps pub a mile south of Whitstable (3 horseshoes I think) that served one great Master Brew.
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I like Masterbrew if it’s in good nick
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And there’s the rub.
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Nice looking pub, though!
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I can only recall having Shepherd Neame beers the once. It was at The Rose in the main shopping street in Herne whilst on Hols. Absolutely wonderful, so I had a second, and then a third. Better than a lot of stuff CAMRA choose
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I like Shep’s too, Pete, but I think that some people in Kent get to feel a bit like a few in Cardiff do about Brians – “Oh, another of their pubs.”
Incidentally, are you the “Peter Potter of little feet” fame?
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Maybe I just forgot to put a name?
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I’m sure there was a pub in Margate old town, very spit and no sawdust, that did a great Master Brew.
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Not facetious Martin, but if you’d been a drinker in Kent, during the late 1970’s – early 1980’s, when Shepherd Neame Bitter (it wasn’t called Master Brew, back then), you would have regarded it as one of the finest beers going.
Fast forward 40 years, and it’s hard to relate the thin, harsh and metallic tasting “stuff” that Shepherd Neame serve up in their pubs today. Ask any drinker, who was around back then, and they will tell you the same thing – hence my surprise at the inclusion of this one beer pub in the GBG.
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I really want you to go to this pub and try the Master Brew now Paul !
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I will take you up on this challenge, Martin, but it might be some time before I head out to that part of Kent.
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I saw two people on Twitter comment that the Master Brew here was particularly good, and it’s not a pub with any profile.
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I’ve been experiencing a few Broadband issues, so apologies Martin, for the duplicate comment. Please delete.
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