The Amber Rooms (JD Wetherspoon), Loughborough

This is a basic modern branch of Wetherspoons located right next to the town’s main central shopping mall. The pub has a single room layout, carpeted throughout, with the servery running down the left-hand wall. The bar has a rather plain counter with a metal grill on the front, a large, mirrored bar back and some fancy looking pot shelves above. The walls have low panelling below plain upper sections decorated with a few items of local interest, a number of plain mirrors and the usual TV screens showing muted news channels, but despite all of this, the place still felt pretty bland and uninteresting. A couple of rows of pillars break the room up quite nicely and there’s a raised seating section to the right which almost feels like a separate room. Seating comes mostly in the form of basic tables and chairs, with a few high tables and stools closer to the entrance and through the space directly opposite the bar. Doors to the rear lead out to a smart looking patio garden full of simple garden furniture and with a few sheltered spots. There were six cask ales available at the bar, split evenly between three ‘Spoons regulars and three guest beers. I was in here early on a Friday morning for breakfast, so swerved the ale in favour of a fry-up and mug of tea, so I can’t comment on the beer quality, but the three guests were at least all interesting brews you might not otherwise chance upon. My breakfast was pretty good and I think something went wrong with the plating up, as I seemed to have double of everything listed on the menu. This felt like a pretty run of the mill ‘Spoons with nothing particularly memorable about it aside from the jumbo breakfast. I can imagine calling in here to try some of the guest beers, but Loughborough has plenty of other better pubs (including another marginally better Wetherspoons), so it probably only merits a wildcard visit on any crawl around town.