UK bloke who gave up opening a brewery to run a country pub

[Feldon]

An inspiring story from the Independent.

I envy this bloke. Long hours, but has acquired a quality of life doing what he loves. Started as a homebrewer too.

Here he is, fronting his bar (and look at that rack of beer engines); Master of all he surveys.




The Salutation Inn: Pub of the year owner admits he escaped London rat race

A former London business analyst yesterday proved that packing in the rat race, fleeing to the countryside and running a pub doesn’t always end in tears after his establishment in a tiny Gloucestershire village won the pub of the year award.



Peter Tiley, 31, quit a sensible “five-figure salary job” and spent nearly all his and his then girlfriend’s life savings on the lease of the The Salutation Inn in Ham near Berkeley.

He spent his first nine months as landlord “sleepwalking and having nightmares every night without fail,” because he was so worried he might ruin the pub.

Today, his gamble paid off as The Salutation was crowned pub of the year by the Campaign for Real Ale.
Mr Tiley, who took over the pub in April 2013, said: “You have to be passionate, but if you are really, really passionate about something, the chances are you will be good at it. I am doing 90-hour weeks, but it doesn’t feel like work.”

Mr Tiley said he was working as a business analyst at a Soho telecoms consultancy in 2011 when he started thinking that although he liked his work, “spending time in a wonderful old boozer talking rubbish with friends was the most fun thing ever”.

He said: “I started thinking about how I would look back on my life as an old man.”

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/the-salutation-inn-pub-of-the-year-owner-admits-he-escaped-london-rat-race-10050158.html?origin=internalSearch

 

[Blind Dog]

Nice story and looks like mainly local beers. Beautiful village as well.

Right about now I'd just about kill for a pint of Butcombe that's properly looked after and served at cellar temps.

 

[Feldon]

Just checked out his web page and found that he hasn't given up on the idea of opening a brewery (homebrewers never die).

This is his rationale for the beers he's planning on producing out the back of the pub.

The brewery will produce top-fermented cask ales in varying styles. We won’t be brewing beers because they are in fashion, because they will sell well or because other people think we should brew them. The beers we’ll be brewing will simply be beers we love. We’ve studied countless books, trawled innumerable webpages, sampled almost every malt and hop variety, spent days brewing with the likes of the Kernel and East London Brewing Co and years tinkering with our recipes. It will still take us a while to get used to the new kit and get it right, but when we do we hope to produce quality, fresh, local beer that will make people just as excited about beer as we are.
Our brewery outbuilding behind the pub is being renovated, the equipment has been ordered and will be installed at the end of February, with the brewing to commence shortly afterwards.
As for the name? Well, in keeping with the traditions of the great English family breweries, we’ll just be keeping it simple and calling ours Tiley’s. Watch out for a pint of it on the bar soon!

http://www.the-sally-at-ham.com/