Beers, Boats and Boozers, No.59.

The next day we spent the morning having a little look around Leicester again before setting off after a bite of lunch back at the boat.

This is the newish Friar's Mill mooring pontoon. The development is not completed yet so will be busier when all the apartments are let but it is a nice and handy spot for town with a good addition of moorings to Leicester.

Not too much further up stream is West Bridge. This actually marks the change from the River Soar Navigation to the Leicester Arm of the Grand Union Canal. Just on our port side are the Castle Garden moorings too.

There is this large weir at the foot of Freeman's Meadow Lock that gives you a good view of the King Power Stadium of Leicester City. They seem to be doing quite well once again in the 2019/20 season.

Nice reflections from Blue Bank Bridge, 102. We stopped for the night above Ervin's Lock and lit the fire as it was a bit of a miserable day and we had got chilled.

The next day we stopped off at Kilby Bridge Services to top up with water and part with our rubbish, a job not made any easier by the moored C&RT work boat and long term moorers being almost up to the services.

It was a long day heading up hill with I think fourteen locks and about the same miles. Helen takes a breather whilst the ,lock fills and admires the countryside. We stopped at Bridge 73 so we could walk into Fleckney for some milk.

We walked into the village and decided to find the Golden Shield pub on Main Road. It seems that this building has only been a pub from about 1910 as the maps show the pub opposite. However that one seemed to have been built around the 1600's and first licenced in 1752. The first mention I can find for the Dun Cow is in April 1812 when auctions for land and properties are being held there. Why it moved over the road I don't know but when it did it was known as the Dun Cow Inn. It kept that name until 1979 when it became the Golden Shield. However by 1990 it had changed its name back again, and actually couldn't make its mind up as the name changed backwards and forwards several times, with it being the Golden Shield at the moment. There is an L shaped bar with the locales seemingly favouring just by the door, or Amen Corner. There is a dining area round the back that had room so that is where we sat. The pub had been in the Good Beer Guide at one time but I was disappointed with the beer choices. Just a 'normal' selection on show, Abbots, Old Peculiar and Doom Bar. They did have another beer from Sharp's though.

Sharp's Brewery was started as a very small affair in 1994 by Bill Sharp. He did very well and soon had to expand his production. In 2011 the brewery was producing 75,000 barrels a year but attracted a buy out from Molson Coors for a cool £20 million. They stated they were going to continue brewing in Rock and keep the cask beers brewed there. It seems that they have been good to their word as they are still there and have expanded production to around 100,000 barrels a year.

The Golden Shield had 'Atlantic', 4.2%, on hand pull as well as Doom Bar, so I tried that. It came into the glass as a nice golden colour with a good white head. You got a whiff of citrus and tropical fruit as you brought it too your lips and at first there was a sweetness, but there are two malts in the beer which takes the edge off an out and out pale ale. At the end the hops bring a dryness too. The beer was first brewed in 2012 and is obviously named after the large expanse of water near the brewery that they don't use in their brewing process. At one time they donated a small percentage of money for every pint to the RNLI, but I'm not sure if that is still the case. A long way off my favourite beer, but I prefer it to the ever present Doom Bar from Sharp's.