Blue Bell Inn, Melton Mowbray

Official site of Blue Bell Inn - www.bluebell-hoby.co.uk

Official site of Blue Bell Inn - www.bluebell-hoby.co.uk

‘Chocolate box’ style exterior including a thatched roof. Oddly, the main door locked shut and you have to enter via the rear – I genuinely thought the place was closed when I passed on mid-afternoon visit and would have moved on if I hadn’t had the foresight to peer through the windows. Two rooms, red and white paint, along with a quarry floor and ‘scrubbed rustic’ exposed wood beams. Nicely carved wooden bar back. Piano with a telly on top showing the snooker to a small gaggle of locals. Skittle alley. Four Everards ales on the go which seemed a stretch on a Monday afternoon but I got GBG quality across the three sampled - Sunchaser (NBSS 4), Tiger (3.5) and Eclipse (3). I enjoyed my stop here, it was a nice pub to have a few drinks in.

Good Beer Guide 2021 Entry - Everards House and their range was on. Tiger was in perfect condition. Lovely beer garden - where they are still offering table service for drinks/food. Great service but it did deprive me of a mooch around inside. The food was excellent and quickly served. £16 for a ploughmans gives you some idea to the amount of content - as it was still reasonable value for money. Nice village pub.

The Blue Bell is the only pub in the village of Hoby and it is run by Everard's. We sat outside in the garden, which slopes down towards the valley. There are great views and a few petanque pits. Beers are all from Everard's - Old Original, Beacon Hill, Tiger & Sunchaser. The cider is Old Rosie. The interior looked dark and traditional. Covid precautions are a little strange. After walking through the pub to order at the bar, we were instructed to take a seat and wait for somebody to take our order. Unlike many places, our order was taken quickly and our drinks arrived quickly. But when asked for the bill, the waitress directed us to pay at the bar. If this process is in place to reduce people's trips to the bar, it failed dramatically for us, as we ended up making 2 trips, instead of the single trip we would have made in pre-Covid times. A little common sense is called for.

improved alot in last few years and lots of pub sports going on most of the year. the pub has two teams in the asfordby and district darts league and two skittles teams playing out of the pubs skittle alley, there are also two petanque pits in the grounds of the pub with a number of teams playing out of them in the leicestershire 1990 league. the grass is well maintained and monday meal deals attracts lots of customers. the pub also holds a xmas darts competition on boxing day and all money raised gose to local charities. the local horticultural socierty holds its open skittles competition there along with the village fate every two years and open gardens every two years, the next hoby open gardens will be in summers of 2012-2014-2016-2018 and fate july 9th 2011 and then summer of 2013-2015 and 2017.