retiredmartin

I didn’t actually know where Anstey was, but of course I would never admit that to Mrs RM, being a bloke.

Here it is, excitingly placed east of edgy Coalville ,north of the dull bit of Leicester and close to Charnwood Forest where in the ’70s footballers would run country pubs post-retirement at 35.

It took AGES to find the Mash & Press, and I’m not even explicitly blaming Mrs RM here. It would have been easier to stick to my initial plan and walk from Rothley. Wherever that is.

Anstey’s brewery tap isn’t, as expected, on a dull industrial estate. Instead it’s tucked in a courtyard off a dead-end residential street in Leicestershire suburbia.

2pm opening, but I can’t see an entrance. Mrs RM goes in search of the ladies and I wait for a group of beer tickers (probably) to turn up and show me the entrance is via the door marked “entrance” and up the steps. Typical micros.

I beat them to the bar, where I order two identical looking halves of pale and a pale coloured fudge brownie, somehow missing the dark beer (left).

It’s a good job I’m quick as there’s only a dozen tables and half of them are “reserved”. Claiming my spot, I then respond to an emergency phone call from Mrs RM who can’t find the entrance either. See, not just me.

While I’m there I stop to admire the Gents, a real Compacto of a toilet.

Back upstairs Mrs RM has eaten the fudge and is contemplating the well made but rather unspectacular homebrew (NBSS 3+).

It’s not my thing at all, but I can see the appeal.

But the owners and staff are lovely, and when I inadvertently kill one of their Christmas decorations that falls from the ceiling on my foot, I decide not to sue.

“My balls are dropping” he shouts, which would have made a more exciting blog title than the post deserves.