Organ Grinder, Loughborough

Decent Monkey pub which was quite busy which meant I could not get a seat. Seven hand pumps but nothing above 4.9% ABV. I would return to this place to see if the ales change at all

Not quite 10, for no good reason, but very close. the Organ Grinder sells the full range of Blue Monkey brews, all in excellent condition. Between the 4 of us, we managed all of them on our visit and were not disappointed. Excellent addition to the fleet of BM pubs and very much one of the best pubs in Loughborough.

As the Old Pack Horse this was originally a Hardy & Hanson pub which gave the pub a GBG status long before Blue Monkey came along. I have to confess I don't recall anything about it from those days but now it's a clean and tidy wooden floored open plan room with no attempt to make it a carbon-copy pretentious "craft" house. The bar greets you with eight handpumps most of which had clips with a smiling chimp staring out. The Bateman's XB looked a bit lost amongst all this monkey business but I was told it sells at £2.70 which is only 35p dearer than the nearby Spoons. The Blue Monkey beers were Infinity, BG Sips, 99 Red Baboons, Guerrilla, Sanctuary, Ape Ale and Marmoset. I had the last pint of the Ape Ale (£3.20) and it was slightly below par. It was very quickly changed for their Infinity + 1. The other three tried were Infinity (£2.90), Guerrilla (£3.00) and Infinity + 1 (£3.30) all of which were truly outstanding. It was the target pub for my day in Loughborough as the two Blue Monkey beers I had tried in London had not met expectations. The beers here certainly exceeded them and I now rate Blue Monkey as a really top brewer. I'll keep the rating at the level it deserves.

The second Blue Monkey pub after the Organ Grinder in Nottingham. I won't dwell on the interior, as Mr Fastard has accurately described it below, other than to say that it is reminiscent of the Nottingham Organ Grinder and shares some of the same touches such as a real fire and small library. I think that this one is more comfortable if anything but that may just be because it wasn't quite as busy on the Thursday evening when we visited. That isn't to say that there wasn't a steady flow of trade with clientele being very mixed and all seemed very happy to be there. Blue Monkey seem to specialise in young, attractive bar staff which when combined with smiling friendliness and good knowledge of the beer they're serving is fairly compelling and no doubt adds to the warm atmosphere. The star here though really is the beer with the following available on our visit: Blue Monkey Ape Ale, Rhesus to be Cheerful, BG Sips, Guerrilla and Whiskey Guerrilla, Infinity and BG Sips as well as Batemans Yella Bella. According to the website there is always a Batemans beer on but given the quality of the Blue Monkey ales available I wonder if it ever gets a look in. We tried most of the range and it was all exceptional. Having made a fairly early start at around 5, we didn't manage to leave and I'm sure that any future visit to Loughborough will have the same result.