The Western, West End, Leicester

Enjoyed our visit to this friendly pub. We chose beers from Hook Norton and Highland / Swannay breweries which were fine. There is a bar and lounge, plus a beer garden, and there are a lot of old pub signs forming a lot of the decor. There is a theatre upstairs here.

A short walk from the city centre, this is a pleasant two bar pub run by the local Steamin’ Billy brewery. Entering through the lobby, doors lead into separate bars on either side of the pub. On the right hand side is the main bar which has bare floorboards and some decent banquette seating formed into small booths along the wall opposite the servery. There was a TV screen on one wall, but it was turned off during our stay. A connecting corridor at the rear leads past a flight of stairs which give access to a small theatre, and into the left hand side of the pub, signposted as the Theatre Bar. This room is partly carpeted and has standard table and chair arrangements with a couple of old settles here and there. There is a dartboard available and the walls are nicely decorated with a mix of old adverts and pub signs. Out the back there is a garden area where several more pub signs are on display. Three Steamin’ Billy beers – Tipsy Fisherman, Bitter and Skydiver – were on alongside Everards Yakima, Hilden Barney’s Brew, Abbeydale Dark Side and Oldershaw Academy. I gave the latter a try and thought it was pretty good – all the more so thanks to the unexpected CAMRA discount offered to all PuG crawlers by the genial barman. I enjoyed the visit to this pub and thought it was worth deviating slightly from the city centre pub circuit in order to take it in. The friendly staff and decent beer range make this a good addition to any pub crawl.