The Blue Boar, Leicester

Billed as a micropub, this relatively new venue which opened in September 2016, doesn’t really feel like a typical micropub, perhaps because of its spacious single room interior which eschews the usual cramped, forced intimacy of most micros. The room is bare boarded, with plenty of open space thanks to the decision to limit seating to just one side of the pub. Hard backed benches can be found to the front and along the left hand wall, supplemented by padded topped kegs, whilst two upturned barrels with wide tops offer somewhere to rest your pint in the middle of the room. Plenty of standing room can be found to the right, along with a drinking ledge but no stools. The room has half height panelling with cream uppers decorated with maps of the city, shelves full of books, board games, jugs and the like, framed pump clip collections and some contemporary graffiti-style artworks. On the right hand wall there are a series of aerial depictions of Leicester through the ages, which are quite interesting to study if, like me, you can’t get a seat and have to stand at the drinking ledge. Other items on display include an old flag and a nice Blue Boar sign. The front windows are etched with the pub name and logo and are lined with hops, as are the ceiling beams and bar canopy. The servery is on the rear wall and has a rather jazzy wood plank counter and windows on the bar back looking through into the tap room. Two huge Leatherbritches Brewery signs are hung either side of the bar and the brewery provides the pub with its house beer. There are also boards back here listing beer, bottle, wine and snack options plus the mandatory pump clip collection. The ale range is also considerably wider than in most micropubs, but I suppose that could be a direct correlation with the pub’s size and the range certainly reflected the usual ethos of sticking to micro breweries. The full range on this visit was Milestone Sherwood Mild, Stockport Arch 14 Mild, North Riding Mandarina Pale, Wantsum Golgotha, Blue Bee Coffee Milk Stout, Potbelly Piggin Saint, Marble Lagonda IPA, Framework Belgian Abbey Ale and Tudor Black Rock. A pretty good range with plenty of dark beers to get stuck into and my pint of the Arch 14 Mild was in fantastic condition and served up by a very friendly, chatty barman. Unusually, the full range of Sam Smith’s bottled beers were also available. This is a quality micropub and probably the most exciting of the most recent crop of new beer-focussed bars to open around Leicester. This felt like the sort of place you could easily settle down and lose countless hours working through their range and if quality can be maintained, will potentially become the must-do pub in the city centre.