The Pub

Eyebrows were raised when Paul from Out of the Vaults on New Walk/King’s Street and Cathal, previously of the neighbouring King’s, formed a new  business and took it across New Walk to what had been archetypal Friday night style  bar Pause.  “You don’t sell real ale in surroundings of leather sofas. recessed halogen lights and blonde wood”, seemed to be the consensus. Paul and Cathal’s view was precisely the opposite – that the sticky floor, rustic look did no-one any favours and just served to alienate people who might be quite keen to explore beer culture.

Anyway, it seems The Pub hasn’t alienated it’s traditional consitituency, there were plenty of paunches, beards and middle-aged pony tails on view when we visited. You can understand why – the beer selection is fantastic and the surroundings are not intimidatingly smart by any means – it’s actually a little endearingly shoddy around the edges. 

It’s a shame the link through to  Welllington Street has been blocked off because the bar is now something of long cave and I found it a little claustrophobic up the far end. They reckon to serve some 33 draught beers at any one time – including a fine array of continental styles as well as a wide variety from local brewers. We had some delightful Oakham Inferno, an IPA from Derbyshire and a remarkably tasty German wheat beer.   Staff were on the glamourous  side (sorry Cathal, I don’t actually mean you) but were skilled and helpful too.

There’s a sensibly short menu and my sausage baguette was as good an example of pub grub as you are likely to come across. A huge, thick  11inch sausage from Grasmere farm in Lincolnshire was juicy and flavoursome and came with sweet mustard and even sweeeter onions. It was just perfect with the beer. Chips seemed to be of the oven variety but were at least crisp and dry.

I hope it is succeeding in bringing in a new clientele to the real ale market, but whatever, The Pub has a good offer and deserves to be checked out. It’s already been made Leicester CAMRA’s Pub of the year for 2010.