The Moon & Bell (JD Wetherspoon), Loughborough

Worst ever selection of real ales I've seen in a Spoons. Nothing above 4.5% ABV. Mind you, there was a marquee in the back with 30 real ales and several of them above 5%, so not all bad.

This Spoons is a converted Tax Office that opened in 1999. Inside it's a fairly typical medium sized one with the usual assortment of tables and chairs. Unusually there is a garden area at the rear that I didn't investigate. For some reason there is an annoying small ramp that runs down the centre of the room ideally situated to trip people up. As in the other Spoons there was no obvious sign of their daytime brigade but a good mix of people eating and drinking. There were two banks of six handpumps which ignoring the 2 GK beers doubled up, Doom Bore and Pedigree were serving Milestone Crusader and Black Pearl, Grainstore Triple B, Banks's Botanic Beer, Nottingham Rock Mild and Bateman's Yella Belly. I went for the Nottingham Mild (£2.35) which was outstanding and when I returned later to eat tried the Banks's Botanical (£2.35) which was well kept but dull. It's a reasonable Spoons that could be improved immediately by serving better Locale beers than Milestone, but on the plus side they claim to ALWAYS sell a mild.