September 2026. Headcorn. Kent.
Only an hour in Headcorn, strategically tucked between Ashford, Maidstone, and Mrs RM (and Shane MacGowan’s) birthplace in Pembury.
An hour is enough to visit the White Hart, walk the length of both sides of the High Street, and diligently bring your readers views of the Church Walk around St Peter and St Paul.
In the stained glass within we see St Simon of BRAPA pleading for minimal churn in the new Beer Guide.
I’m more taken in the official church mascots.
Headcorn isn’t overpubbed. I consider a pre-emptive tick in the beautiful George (it’s lost its “and dragon” carelessly),
but the lone hand pump is turned around, and I really don’t want Madri (no offence to Spaniards).
Instead I pop in Tap 17 next door, fulfilling a promise I made two years ago.
These days there’s plenty of small pubs without any interest in real ale, and that’s fine, but it’s unusual for a purely keg micro to just take the craft beers of respected cask brewers like Kent and Moot. It’s not a line-up to wow Stafford Paul, I suspect.
The welcome at the bar from the young staff couldn’t have been friendlier, the Kent Five Hop was cool and tasty, and in the garden a young lad’s phone burst into embarassing life as he forgot the volume button.
“I was only looking at the pasta recipes !” he pleaded, but we’d rumbled him.
In a random pub you just want something, anything to happen, and involuntary embarassment always delivers.
More interesting than the poster for the talk on Parisian traitors at the station, anyway.
retiredmartin 
Tap 17, majoring in craft murk, by the looks of it. Fortunately, Paulaner Helles saves the day, as evidenced by the photo from the garden/outdoor drinking area.
I haven’t visited this micro, and on my last visit to Headcorn, wasn’t overly impressed with the G&D either, as I gather you weren’t. I’m sure there was at least one decent pub, at the other end of the High Street, but it’s probably a very desirable, second-home, these days.
Interesting conversation this afternoon, in the Gardener’s Arms, Lewes. Pleased to know that other drinkers share my disdain of hazy beers.
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