The first pub landlord I knew the name of was John Landsdel. He was the landlord of my accidentally-found local when I moved to a new house in Bristol.
He was, outwardly at least, curmudgeonly and didn't suffer fools AT ALL. I once saw him tell someone off for ringing the "time" bell.
He was well known in Bristol Beer circles for being fanatical about the condition of his beer. He was definitely that.
He once berated my friend for accepting a mistakenly-given cauliflower cheese lunch when he'd asked for chilli. Pretty much any time we went in after that, he'd make a joke at P's expense. To P it got a little bit tired. To John, it never did.
He was a director of Bath Ales and, over time, his duties changed so they appointed another landlord.
John was a superb landlord - he knew his customers, he knew his beer and he didn't take shit from anyone.
The landlord of my current local is Andy. Altogether a different kind of a guy. Seemingly more gentle but, again, you absolutely wouldn't mess with him.
He is also fanatical about the beer he sells - so when he came up to us yesterday and said did you have the L***** beer, what did you think? I still marvelled that he'd remembered we'd bought a couple of pints. Not only that but he broke off the "Sunday Meat Raffle" to serve us and then had a frenetic 15 minutes of play your cards right to offload a £200 jackpot to a crowded pub.
He wouldn't truck any argument. He said he wasn't happy with the beer (we'd put it down to just not being our taste) - its taste and condition so he was taking it off and immediately replaced it with a couple of pints of Gun Extra Pale - even though we'd almost finished our pints.
Our local is an interesting place. A broad range of clients - from plasterers and welders, to those working in Arts administration and well - us in Tech Ed.
The Sunday meet raffle brings the punters in. It's a loud and raucous time and Andy fronts the show us like a veritable Bruce Forsyth.
But in his other place - the craft beer, whisky and cigar bar near the train station he's like a different man. (he's also like that when the Crown's quiet). Passionate about beer - both the serviing and the drinking - and always up for a chat about it but much quieter.
We don't see the other driving force of the business quite as much in the Crown - Jo. She does make her presence felt, though - from the styling of the place (there are always flowers), to the occasional food bits offered. We tend to see her more in the other place.
It's hard to imagine two drinking establishments, run by the same team which are more different.
I love both places for what they are and they are that because of the couple that are driving it.
A rare skill indeed.
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