The Generous Briton, Loughborough

Two rooms with various real ales on offer, sadly, nothing above 4.5% ABV. There was a cider @ 7.5% which more than made up for it.

One of my favourite pubs on our days crawl, so well worth a visit. The landlord made us most welcome and gave us good local advice on which pubs to visit around town. He was also into his real ales and told us he used to manage the Swan and Rushes for several years. There were seven ales on handpump and a choice of two ciders, I went for the Ossett Inception, which was sublime. We also tried Blue Bee Columbus IPA, also in great condition. This is a two roomed pub with a bar side and lounge side. Both rooms had carved granite fireplaces and looked to be in use. The bar side had feature wallpaper, which depicted campervans on one wall and holiday postcards wallpaper featured on the chimney breast wall. The servery in the bar was also unusual, as it had a wave shaped pine front and looked original, perhaps from the 1930's. I would have no hesitation visiting this freehouse again and the landlord even shook hands when we were leaving.

Good real ale pub that serves some decent food too. Had a decent pint of Oakham JHB and a cheese and ham Panini, that was red hot and very tastey. well worth a visit if you are in town.

This former Ind Coope pub on the main road west of the town centre was closed for some time before becoming in more recent years a free house and a regular GBG entry. It looks like it was probably built between the wars and it also looks like it hasn't changed a lot since then. As you enter there is a door to the right leading into the public bar and one to the left for the saloon. I started by entering the public bar but immediately switched to the saloon as there was a screen blasting out some boring and meaningless football match. The saloon bar had what looked like original wooden floors with tiling around the bar. At the rear there was a Pool table and behind that a garden which I didn't investigate. Each bar has a bank of four handpumps. The public bar had Oakham JHB, Nottingham Legend, Bass and Old Rosie Cider. The Saloon had Hopback Crop Circle, Lymestone Ein Stein, Titanic Anchor and Rudgate Ruby Mild. I went for the Lymestone Ein Stein which cost just over £3.00 (the price that I wrote down got smudged!). All well and good so far, it's a classic traditional pub that people who go for that sort of thing will love but the downside for me was the fact that on entering the Saloon Bar there were two screens showing the same tedious football match, albeit at a lower volume. Nobody was taking the slightest notice of this so why have them on at all? There was a time when a TV screen in a pub was a rare thing so what's gone wrong? Why should sports fans be allowed to dictate to other punters that they have to endure all this rubbish? They do a CAMRA discount, but I completely forgot about it and Whatpub doesn't specify what it is.