The Rochester pub that kept getting it right
After surviving bankruptcy, covid and everything else thrown at the trade, the Who’d Ha Thought It has taken CAMRA’s top local award
When the Who’d Ha Thought It was voted Medway CAMRA Pub of the Year 2026 by the branch membership, nobody should have been surprised. Nobody except perhaps Liz herself, who has spent twenty years quietly doing everything right and letting the beer do the talking. Although she must have known she was on the right track, having been included in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide for 12 consecutive years.
The pub was nearly lost for good twenty years ago when the brewery that owned the premises went bankrupt. It came up for auction and Liz and her partner Danny, who had been drinking there since he was fourteen, decided, more or less on impulse, to go for it. They completed the purchase just six days before Christmas, arriving to find the previous tenants removing the pool table and jukebox. "What have we done?" was the thought uppermost in Liz's mind as the Christmas holidays bore down on them. Twenty years on, with a Pub of the Year award on the wall and a loyal community wrapped around the place like a warm coat, the answer is obvious.
The beer is naturally where it starts. The Who’d Ha Thought It is a free house, which means Liz can source from wherever she likes, and she makes full use of that freedom. She tries to keep a pale, a dark, and an amber on, enough to cover all tastes, but beyond that framework, anything can happen. On the pumps last night were two golden ales, Wantsum Brewery’s 'St George's Ale,' and Hopback’s 'Summer Lightning,' as well as an Iron Pier 'Bitter,' made with Kentish hops. Locals have learned to walk in expecting a pleasant surprise. “I know what most people like, and I've converted quite a lot of lager drinkers over the years, usually to the pale beers rather than the more traditional bitters. Even my dad has converted to drinking pales these days.”
Kent breweries feature prominently, and the pub is an active supporter of the Kent Licensed Victuallers Association, whose WhatsApp group doubles as a mutual aid society for members in a panic either after running out of gas mid-session or needing a hand with something at the last minute. Guest ales from further afield appear regularly too. Jaipur was on recently, doing rather better than Liz had expected. "That's never going to sell," she thought, but it shifted quickly.
