The Salmon, Leicester

Voted Leicester CAMRA pub of the Year for the last two years, with landslide majorities, the Salmon is an essential port of call for any real ale fans visiting the city. The pub has a compact U shape layout with a mix of tiles and bare floorboards. The right hand side of the pub was dominated by some temporary stilage set up for a beer festival and was very crowded during our stay. There is fixed seating around the perimeter and the walls have nice tiling and half panels. The left side of the pub has a decent amount of bench and low stool seating, with the PuG crawlers giving the benches a thorough test as they piled on for a group photo. A lit fire was very welcome given the terrible weather outside and the walls were decorated with various bits of Leicester Tigers memorabilia, with a TV screen on one wall for sports coverage. The servery has a stained glass canopy and a Banks’ mirror behind the bar reminds us of the pubs former ownership. There were five ales available on the bar – Fallen Dragonfly, Elixir Cuzzy Brew, Burnside Blonde, Demonbrew Demon Black and Betjamin Imperial Christmas Stout – plus several more on the aforementioned stilage. My pint of Cuzzy Brew was in fine shape but as others have mentioned, the beers on stilage were pouring flat, which was a shame as there was a tempting line up. Food is available at lunchtimes from Monday to Saturday. The barman seemed friendly enough (although I didn’t have my camera with me, which might have helped!) and talked us through his proposed brewery venture which is set to open soon. Clearly this is a must do pub for the beer tourist, but I thought it had more to it than just a good ale policy. It’s a well set up, homely pub with friendly locals and enthusiastic staff and it will be one of the first pubs I seek out the next time I’m in town.

I called in here twice during our Leicester jaunt. Once after the beer festival and again on the PuG crawl. On the first visit I had a couple of halves from their festival bar which I thought were in pretty good nick and a pint from one of the handpumps. The day after I just had a pint from the normal bar as the festival bar was crowded with familiar faces. I'd like to visit again when it's a bit quieter, but I thoroughly enjoyed the place. It will also become a brewpub in the very near future when it will be home to Dem Bones brewery.

Deciding to make an inaugural visit to The Salmon during the Leicester CAMRA Beer festival week when the pub was hosting its own mini festival with an additional eight barrels on stillage taking up a fair chunk of the available space on the right hand side of the bar probably wasn’t conducive to seeing how this place functions normally. But I saw enough to know this must now be added for a further visit when next in town. The traditional pub décor is well described below and the collection of Leicester centred rugby memorabilia was interesting to a Saracens supporter. Ignoring the festival options the pub offers 6 regularly changing ales, mainly from microbreweries, which usually includes a mild, and have real cider on draught too. Similarly to the reviewer below the half I tried from one of the barrels wasn’t too good, but the one from the pumps was very well kept. And if I had been able to write at this late stage of our crawl I would have been able to tell you what they were as well !

Had to be included on our Leicester tour, given the good reports and the Salmon didn't disappoint. The ales come from far and wide - even Croydon! I could have had any of 8 or so ales but went for the Cronx Kotchin - an unexpected sight on the bar and in good shape. Past lunchtime, the bar snacks are limited but undeniably cheap. We didn't stay long, but perhaps we should have done. Maybe next time.