Meet The Publican - The Black Horse, Aylestone

For this edition of “Meet the Publican”, we go to Aylestone to meet Phil Jones, the new Licensee of the Black Horse. Phil, his family and two Border Collies are now well settled in, having moved there (from The Bull’s Head in Ratby) towards the end of 2006.

Phil was born in Newcastle in 1967. Family moves took him to Coventry when he was ten years old and then on to Lincoln when he was sixteen. Two years later, Phil moved to Stoke where he worked as a Machinist at BPCM Ltd.

In 1986, he went to Loughborough University to study Engineering Science and Technology. Leaving University, Phil had a variety of jobs around Lincoln, including one delivering Real Ale. This was when he decided that Real Ale was really good! He worked for four years at the Wig and Mitre as Duty Manager and then for a year at the Red Lion in Caythorpe, Lincolnshire.

Phil came to Leicester in 1993 to do a four year sandwich course in "Computer Systems for Business" at De Montfort University and took on a part time job during the course as Barman and Cellar Man at Welford Place. Phil spent the third year of the course on placement at CERN, near Geneva. During his final year he had a part time job at the newly-opened Vaults as a Barman and Cellar Man. During this time in Leicester, Phil and Marny met and married. They now have two children: Robert, who is eleven years old and Aimée who is nine.  

The family moved to Ireland in 1998, where Phil worked in IT for about three years as a computer programmer for airline reservation systems and then for a further two years at IBM.  

They decided to come back to Britain to look for pubs to run. This brought them back to Leicester in 2003 where Phil managed the Swan and Rushes for just over a year. The family moved to the Bull’s Head at Ratby, which was mentioned in the Beer Guide for the first time and won Pub of the Month in October 2005. In October 2006 Phil took over as the Licensee at the Black Horse in Aylestone - and since then has significantly increased the Real Ale range.

Phil was invited to take part in the first Everards Gold Award Course, along with five others, to learn all aspects of beer production and care. This resulted in them making their own beer called Publicans’ Pride, which was sold only in their pubs.

Outside work, Phil is passionate about blues harmonica and plays the cornet as a member of Ratby Brass Band. He walked the West Highland Way with three others and raised eight thousand pounds for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Phil has recently set up a website www.philspub.co.uk, where we can find out more.

Peter Tomlinson.

This page last updated: May 28, 2008

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