BRAPA .... LEICESTERSHIRE COUNTDOWN (Part 1/4 - Pubs 25-20)

Over the Easter break, I ticked 25 Leicestershire Good Beer Guide pubs and for the first time in my Leics career, and I'm pleased to be able to report favourably on the holy trinity of pubs, beer and people.

The only other time Leics had made any kind of sense to me was the previous Easter, when I made good progress in the Loughborough/Charnwood area, so maybe it needs a bit of Jesus, freshly hatched chicks and chocolate bunnies to excel?

Although I've tried to rank them in some kind of worst to best order, even this first part doesn't contain any absolute stinkers like you might find in Norfolk, Fife or Northumberland.

Let's get into it ......

25. Blue Bell, Rothley

As afternoon turns to evening on Easter Saturday, I enter the only pub of the week which felt like one of those 'wildcard' entries that CAMRA haven't been shy to pick of late. My ale, a hazy Easter Hop Bunny Purity thing is quite nice, even if all the pump clips were half turned around and I had to check cask ale was a still thing! The barmaid is cheerful in her reply, and has an arm tattoo which looks like a rabbit going up in flames just to keep us in spirit of the season / beer. For these reasons, I'm loathe to rank it bottom but the place just felt so messy, so transient, scatty furniture layout. Draughty doors, running kids, fussy olds, much through traffic, but no one actually sitting down having a drink. Worst of all, a soggy floor and damp rug with a wet floor cone plonked in my eyeline for the duration. Shame as I'd give the rug an 8.5 in normal circs, and the slate floor is pretty good too. Considering the excellent but very rude Woodman's Stroke (also in Rothley) is a GBG staple, my main question re this place would be 'why?'

24. Langton Arms, Church Langton

A morale boosting but ultimately bland 'taxi cheat' on my difficult second day on the outskirts of Market Harborough, it was the only GBG pub open in the area and for that it deserves not to finish bottom. It had me sweating though, 12 noon and no sign of the front door swinging open, until I realise all the action is round the back where the car park was. Go figure. I tried to have some 'jokey bantz' with a posh cheesestring shaped dude about standing at the front in the rain like a dork but he wasn't having it and ran into a coal shed. Despite some nice stained glass, the back of the 'pub' was a restaurant. I'm shoehorned around the front with a pretty avg pint of 'Inclined Plane' where the only other customer is a bossy old lady demanding they put half a lager on her table. Pubbier around the front bit still ultimately gloomy. "If the village had a heart .... it would be the pub" said a sign on a beam. Felt a bit hollow. I'm glad it was a very swift 25 min pint before a rare bus chugs me back to MH where I'd sit in Nero for the next 2 hours - which felt more pubby than this!

23. Fox, Lutterworth

Following on from the excellent Unicorn would be tough for any pub, but the grey muted interior of the Fox, and to a lesser extent, their recent removal of Bass, made for a pub experience that made the Langton Arms look 'colourful'. Beerwise though, spot on. As is the bloke. He refuses to give me the UBU Purity as he's spied a cloudiness not visible to my untrained eye. "Oh well, better than being poisoned!" chirrups a positive man next to me who is forced to wait patiently for his lager whilst my barrel is investigated. He returns to tell me it isn't ready yet, but the replacement Tim Taylor Landlord drinks well. Yet the incessant swathes of grey just put me on a bit of a downer, even if a jolly Madri David Seaman sticks his head through a cubby hole to say hello late on.

22. Wheel & Compass, Weston-by-Welland

Over the border in good old Northants, but best approached from a Market Harboroughly direction (wheels will help, probably a compass too), this was a bloody weird place. Quite a nice pub in some respects (low beamed roof, old fashioned Abbot pump clip, good pint) but suffocating and crazily insular. A group at the bar are discussing the likelihood of more rain. I've just come in from a 30 min walk, so feel qualified to answer. "Just spitting at the moment!" I tell them. Well, you've never seen a group close ranks so quickly, forming a tight semi-circle away from me, the young lady with her back to me the most impressive as she itches her ear like she's hearing ghosts. More maddening is that they are such a bunch of loud and jovial bar blockers amongst themselves! THREE Uber's pick up my request, and then immediately decline, just adding to my sense of isolation and warm sweating suffocation (a layer was removed!), before Mahomed comes to save the day. "That's why you've got an average rating of 4.99/5!" I tell him, like he's a 'Spoons carpet in human form.

21. George, Ashley

And I'd walked to Weston by Welland from another Northants outlier, here in neighbouring Ashley. This chunky community survivor has held onto pub status, and we really are out in the wilds here. Beautiful scenery and village, thatched cottages abound, 'chocolate box' as they say, full of locals who funnily enough would lick their own arseholes clean if they were made of the stuff. Though to be honest, the reception here was more down to earth than WbW even if it was foodier. There's even a functioning dartboard, and an old lady reading ten newspapers simultaneously vacates her seat at just the right moment for me. The Boltmaker is drinking a bit greasy and two hooray Henry's eyeball Colin with disdain, but the satisfaction of wielding the green highlighter pen on such a GBG entry is like overriding anaesthetic. Well, that's until a huge group come along, all 'mwah mwah darling' hugging, cheek kissing, there's this really pervy uncle with eyes deep and black like oil slick filled rock pools. He has no soul. And rubs his 16 year old nieces back with a bit too much vigour. It was time to walk to WbW.

20. Forge Inn, Glenfield

And we'll end this slog of a blog (a blessed relief I know!) with a trip to one of Leicester's more accessible suburbs disguised as a village - Glenfield. Like Church Langton earlier, I'm panicking at the very locked front door, until I realise all the action is around the back. There is water, there is a car park, it is finally sunny, it is Easter Saturday, and that means slaloming my way through the crowds like an experienced German skier called Kock. It is only 15 degrees but the poor sun-starved Brits have their sunnies on, far too much skin on display, crop tops, flip flops, it is quite ridiculous. Proud of myself because I break a queue that has formed in the entrance and head straight to the bar. I'm helping the pub too because it is stopping the staff from having a clear run to the garden. There's a nice swathe of leather bench at 9 o'clock to the bar, so I become the only indoor customer, where I can appreciate the sheer hard work the army of staff are putting in. The Dow Bridge is an excellent pint too, a decent job all round from the Forge in difficult circs, many lesser pubs would've made this a nightmare experience.

So there we go, hope you appreciate the less glamorous side of pub ticking (don't worry, we'll be chatting glam Glamorgan soon enough!) See you on Thursday for Leics part 2.

Sweet pub dreams, Si