Groggster

By Groggster

My Kingdom For A Lager

Today we decided to take a quick zip out to a new farm shop that we'd spotted on a previous trip out for a pint at The Cock Inn in Boughton Monchelsea.
Loddington Farm Shop actually only opened at the start of the year and they want it to be a window to the wider work they're doing on their farm, where regenerating the land, farming with nature and sustainable agriculture are at the heart of their mission. They work with a number of carefully selected suppliers and sell their own fresh produce - including eggs, pork, venison and fruit juices.
However, before we actually got round to buying anything we could smell coffee roasting and found out that it also has a cafe attached, called Kampa Coffee, that not only sells hot drinks and snacks from a van with a small marquee but is also a small batch coffee roaster. Despite it being a grey and wet day it was busy with customers and their canine companions. I'm glad to report that both the coffee and the pastries we had were great.
Suitably refreshed we went back into the farm shop and bought a delicious looking sticky marmalade cake and two cans of local beer from Tonbridge Brewery - a wheat beer called Blonde Ambition (other beers in their range include Union Ale, Ebony Moon, Alsace Gold and Coppernob) and a Kent hopped lager called Horsa.
The name of the lager immediately caught my attention as it has a local connection. According to legend Horsa, and his brother Hengist, were the leaders of the first Anglo Saxon settlers in Britain. They landed on our shores in the fifth century and established the Kingdom of Kent, after defeating Vortigern at the Battle of Aylesford (my home village) in 455 AD. At one time our village had both a restaurant named The Hengist and a cafe named after Horsa but sadly both are longer with us. With all that history from a can of lager I though I should depict it for today's image so I've tried giving it an evocative industrial vibe - well it's actually balanced rather precariously on top of our kettle with the light from our kitchen window casting some 'moody' shadows and the downpipe from our gas boiler adding some grittiness! :-)
We've also got some further investigations to do as the site also includes  the Musket Brewery and taproom whose wares we're determined to sample on future visit.

Comments
Sign in or get an account to comment.