So long, Old Mudgie

I noticed that my last two blogposts have been 'So longs' - something that happened purely by accident and/or editorial laziness on my part. 

I'm now going to 'complete the trilogy', but this is a farewell I really wish we didn't have to bid. RIP Peter Edwardson, aka The Pub Curmudgeon, who died unexpectedly a few days ago, at just 64.

This is a sad loss; To my knowledge, I only Peter in person the one time, and that was a fair few years ago, possibly even before his beer blogging really took off, though he was already writing for his local CAMRA publications.

I had contacted his local branch about the possibility of re-publishing some of his work down South, and as I happened to be in his neck of the woods for football, we met up for a few pints. Robinson's Unicorn, if I remember correctly. 

His blog famously promises 'a jaundiced view of life from the darkest recess of the saloon bar', but possibly more significantly, he also wrote from a perspective well outside of the 'beer bubble' and provided a refreshing counterpoint at a time when you'd be forgiven for thinking people who wrote about beer were woke hipsters who only drank craft keg.

He couldn't be persuaded into 'that world' and I acted as an intermediary for a while, with a foot in both camps. Indeed he rather relished being blocked on social media by some of the bigger names in the beer writing business for having 'the wrong opinions'.  

We had very different tastes in beer, and indeed different views on many of the issues affecting beer, pubs and breweries. But we shared a taste in music (Tull, Rush, Roxette, Thunder... though we disagreed slightly on 'Stop the Cavalry by Jonah Lewie') and a broadly Libertarian politics. I wonder if we were the only two mostly non-smokers that were fiercely opposed to the smoking ban.

He was a staunch defender of traditional British beer styles, bench seating, regional breweries and the tied house system. And of course Draught Bass. And, to some extent, Sam Smiths. He actively disliked a lot of the stuff I like, but we were always able to disagree amicably and have an intelligent discussion, from which we might all learn.

This is not a eulogy and I didn't know Peter well enough to say any more. Just go and read his blog. It was good.

Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory.