As far as changes of career go, the decision by Peter Tiley to swap his well-paid business analyst job in London for the challenge of running a free-house in a small village in Gloucestershire is quite a leap of faith. However, with a love of beer to drive him on and clearly a determination to make his new venture Work, he has not only grown into the role but also managed to scoop the prestigious Camra 'Pub of the Year' award.
Mr Tiley's risky undertaking was made even more of a journey into the unknown, by the fact that he had never worked behind the bar before picking up the reins at the Salutation Inn in Ham, a decision he made two years ago.
The village itself is very different from the hustle and bustle of the City as well, featuring just twenty houses in addition to the pub itself, so he clearly needed to integrate himself into the local community, if he was to have any chance of succeeding.
Besides giving up his "five-figure-salary job" and the guaranteed income that represented, he also had to spend almost all of his savings and those of his (then) girlfriend, Claire, to meet the cost of the lease for the public house, situated near Berkeley. The couple have subsequently married.
Despite admitting that the first nine months were fraught to say the least in his new profession, as Mr Tiley constantly worried that he would ruin the great pub he was in charge of, the move has since paid off handsomely for the Tileys.
On Monday the pub was named as the 'Pub of the Year' by the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra).
'The Sally' as it is known to the locals, won the local branch competition run by Camra just eleven months after the Tileys took it over. From there they went on to be successful in the whole region, before finally beating 50,000 other UK pubs to the top award.
Camra's Good Beer Guide describes it as a "rural gem in the Severn Valley."
On hearing the news of the award, the newly-converted publican said that he was "thrilled" that it has all worked out so well so far. However, he acknowledged that it has required a strong commitment to make things work out so well, with the thirty-one-year-old saying that although he is "doing 90-hour weeks" that it "doesn't feel like work."
Apparently, the idea for the new challenge came to him in 2011, when he began to think that he would prefer to be doing something different with his life.
Quite whether he had envisaged the thought of encouraging the likes of Morris dancing and skittles at his chosen place of work (as he has done in his new venture) ,remains to be seen. Yet, he admits that it would not have worked without the "great staff and amazing, supportive locals."
