The Fountain Inn, Leek

A good looking pub both inside and out. You enter into the bar area and there's further rooms on either side. A roaring fire going in the hearth which was the focal point for quite a few regulars. Initially we had to sit in one of the side rooms, but as one table became free we moved into the main room. Ten handpumps on the bar with two reserved for cider. We ended up having two each here as the beer was in very good nick and the atmosphere was very pleasant. A multiple CAMRA award winner in the Staffordshire Moorlands area and was West Midlands Pub Of The Year 2018. It's a very good pub.

It's not often I find 90% of the customers older than me when entering a pub these days, so it must be a really good cask beer pub. Six beers on at the time of my visit, and having gone for Bass in the two previous pubs, I went for it again. After scores of 3 and then 3.5, this one was NBSS 4. The exterior of this pub is painted in the inexplicably popular dark grey, and the interior is largely fake , but I quite liked it anyway. I hope they have some younger regulars too.

The Fountain Inn is L-shaped with wood floor throughout and a few well positioned rugs. To the right of the central entrance is a brown faux leather banquette that sits under the front window and a fireplace sits adjacent to a bookshelf on the right-hand wall. An identical banquette sits under the left front window and another fireplace sits on the left-hand wall opposite the one to the right. More brown banquettes run up the left-hand wall to another fireplace left rear where lots of chopped logs are stored. In the left rear is the ‘snug’ with banquettes up the side walls and the kitchen door at the rear. I thought this area felt more like a corridor with seating, it certainly isn’t a snug. The serving counter on the rear wall serves the main bar area and a tile floored L-shaped bar to the right where a dartboard resides. I counted ten hand pumps that were drawing Burton Bridge Brewery’s Stairway to Heaven and Bridge Bitter, Wye Valley’s Butty Bach, Beartown’s Best, M&B’s Brew XI, Bass, St Austell’s Tribute, Salopian’s Oracle and two ciders, one from Lilley’s and another from Westons. The service was polite and the Bass was good, this place is certainly a must if in Leek.

Fine old pub on the edge of the town centre, with a seemingly unaltered interior having different seating areas on three sides of the central servery. All very traditional, including the lively banter between various groups of locals. An impressive bank of ten handpumps is located directly opposite the entrance, offering a great range of real ales from different breweries, a cider and a perry. After some dithering while a good natured dispute about the acceptable head on a pint was resolved, I went for a (very full) pint of Burton Bridge's anniversary Ruby Red - good value at £3.30.