The Half Moon, Melton Mowbray

Nextdoor to Melton Mowbray's famous Dickinson & Morris pork pie shop, this is a rough and ready town centre local which now features in the Good Beer Guide. There are two decent size rooms, the main front bar and a slightly smaller rear bar which leads to an outdoor area. Bass & Castle Rock Harvest Pale are the regular beers. The guest beer was Robinson's Trooper Day of the Dead. The barmaid assured me that there were 3 versions of Trooper and that this wasn't the original one. I've had Trooper before. This tasted exactly the same and was also 4.7%. Further research indicates that she was incorrect. It is just a different pumpclip! The Half Moon had a few interesting characters. Some were watching the FA Cup Final in the front bar. Others were watching horse racing from Epsom in the rear. We sat in the rear bar near the doorway, where loud music was completing with commentary from both the football and the racing and the general banter. As we were leaving, one wag asked us to bring our wallets with us next time. I'm not sure there'll be a next time!

Fairly basic two-bar town-centre boozer with a narrow frontage. Unusually, both rooms are slightly split level, with a street-level seating / live music area in front of the main bar and a pool table at the back of the smaller rear one. Just Bass (£2.80) on the solitary handpump, but it was worth waiting a few minutes for a fresh pint as the barman changed the empty barrel.