The Two-Tailed Lion, Leicester

My pub of the night. A very friendly greeting on entrance from the barman. This didnt happen as well in the other 4 places visited. A great choice of beers - mainly modern but a good selection of cask and keg. Surprisingly, a real Manchester theme with Marble, Cloudwater and Pomonma all available. Maybe the owner's preference? A Victorian town house converted over two floors. Nicely done..... and by a country mile, my preferred pub in Leicester from my night out.

The Two-Tailed Lion is a small bar with banquette seating in the front window and also at the rear where the U-shaped seating curves around a couple of tables. The bar counter, situated mid-way up the left wall, faces some high tables to the right. The background music was very varied with some thrash metal being followed by Nena’s 99 Red Balloons. The toilets are found upstairs, as is a small seating area at the rear. The three hand pumps on the counter were drawing Dark Revolution’s Space Cadet, Mill Hill Brewing’s It’s All From The Malt and Blue Bee Brewery’s Tempest Stout, the latter being nice enough. I also counted six craft fonts on the back bar. The barman was friendly, so I think it’s worth a look.

Small pub between the Rutland & Derby and the well known Blue Boar. Odd shaped ground floor with the servery to the left home to three pulls and five kegs all of which are shown on a laser display screen. Toilets are upstairs and there’s a sitting room next to it.

I'd never managed to find this bar open on previous visits to Leicester, probably due to its confined spaces not being particularly suitable to Covid regulations. On our Sunday afternoon visit, it was fairly busy when we first arrived, but emptied quickly as football fans headed off to the nearby stadium. This allowed us to grab one of the high tables near to the ground floor bar. Climbing the stairs to the toilets reveals further rooms on different levels. Just a couple of real ales were on here, as the emphasis is mainly on craft beers. Cask beers were Abbeydale Salvation & Framework Semper #10 New England Pale Ale. Craft beers were Abbeydale Heathen, Buxton Gatekeeper & Axe Edge, ORA Balsamic Imperial Stout & Pomona Island Sott'er Celo de Roma. Apparently they normally stock a real cider, but their delivery agents had let them down. Bar staff seemed knowledgeable and friendly. Although if they still do a CAMRA discount, it was neither offered nor advertised. A welcome addition to the Leicester pub scene, it makes for a good place to pop into if also visiting the excellent Blue Boar just down the street.

Smaller on the inside than it looks. Three hand pumps, six craft. Room to the rear which was where I sat.

Small craft bar and shop with 3 well kept real ales, Padded benches either end of the room, bar in the middle. Very new and sharp.

Another fairly new pub on the street. Fairly small, certainly compared to the Blue Boar though there was an unexplored room upstairs which may have been a bit bigger. A modernish interior which hasn’t got anything particularly offensive about it and was quite dimly lit on my rather late evening visit and in fact me and Mrs Quinno were the only customers, in contrast to the Blue Boar which we had just left which was doing a healthy trade. A big electronic board showcased the wide range of beers available. There were three pumps at the bar with two on from Four Points and Tiny Rebel (NBSS 2.5). Also a fair selection of keykeg and I tried a third of the Cloudwater which was a tad warm, not what you’d expect really. The friendly lass behind the bar was good value for a chat. I guess my visit - very late on an early weekday evening outside of University term time - meant I didn’t see it anywhere near its best. 6.5

Official site of The Two-Tailed Lion - www.thetwotailedlion.com