October 2025. Leicester.
Having paid for a night’s accommodation in the centre of Leicester that Wednesday (£60 at the well-equipped* Ramada Encore) I wasn’t going to bed at 6, even if Mrs RM was.
A bit of night-time street art ?
Nah, let’s do a pub.
News of my visit had seen “incomer” Quinno go into hiding, but local legend and pub crawl instigator Shawn interrupted an actual beer festival to say hello at the Ale Wagon.
This is one of the great pubs, though I always think I’ve been in more than I actually have.
In 2016 I wrote Perhaps Britain’s grumpiest pub, one of those places that I’ve never liked, but have to go in on each Leicester visit. I took Mrs RM here before a John Grant gig in 2010; I would have been on safer ground taking her to Ikea and saying “Take your time, dear“.
Perhaps Mrs RM had read my posts; I’d been hopeful she’d join me to discuss pumping stations with Shawn.
Look, it’s all about the comfort, isn’t it ?
This is one of those places where you could easily sit all evening, and many do, working through the Hoskins beers (HOB NBSS 3+, 3 Cs NBSS 4) and talk rubbish with regular trips to the Gents.
It’s the Hare & Hounds of the Midlands, if there was such a thing as the Midlands.
Leaving Shawn after an hour and a half of chat about who knows what, I attempted to walk back to my hotel, but inexplicably ended up at the new GBG craft bar I’d heard had ditched cask.
Well, the Real Ale Classroom hasn’t ditched cask, though that blackboard may make it seem a little hard to find;
Still, Two by Two Pale under a fiver, cool and crisp (NBSS 3.5), can’t argue with that,
though the seating was uncomfortable, and while Mrs RM may have preferred the keg in RAC, she’d definitely had wanted to drink it in the bench seating of the Ale Wagon.
I guess that’s what comes of getting old and creaky.
*where “well-equipped” = lots of sockets for tech, working Wi-Fi and NON-DECAF coffee sachets
retiredmartin 
The seating in ‘all’ the Real Ale Classrooms is uncomfortable, it’s a great shame as they’re excellent in most other ways.
(The Real) Mark
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Exactly. I think I said similar about the ones in east Leicester and That Lutterworth.
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“It’s the Hare & Hounds of the Midlands” makes sense.
And it’s eight years and nineteen days since our first meeting in the Ale Wagon.
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I saw the plaque.
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I’m thinking there’s a German joke here but I’m not certain !
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Are you certain you don’t mean plague?
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To be avoided like Watneys, Scott ?
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At all costs, Paul 😉
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“Nah, let’s do a pub.”
Phew!
“This is one of the great pubs, though I always think I’ve been in more than I actually have.”
The memory starts playing tricks as one ages.
“This is one of those places where you could easily sit all evening, and many do, working through the Hoskins beers (HOB NBSS 3+, 3 Cs NBSS 4) and talk rubbish with regular trips to the Gents.”
A great pub indeed.
“but inexplicably ended up at the new GBG craft bar I’d heard had ditched cask.”
Go on…
“Well, the Real Ale Classroom hasn’t ditched cask, though that blackboard may make it seem a little hard to find;”
(looks down)
Yikes!
“she’d definitely had wanted to drink it in the bench seating of the Ale Wagon.”
Yup. More to a pub than just the beer.
“*where “well-equipped” = lots of sockets for tech, working Wi-Fi and NON-DECAF coffee sachets”
Guess they have to keep up with the times.
Cheers
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“the new GBG craft bar I’d heard had ditched cask.” – Never trust local CAMRA gossips: they panic at the first sign of change, however small.
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Don’t we all, William !
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