{"id":2922,"date":"2022-09-23T11:42:17","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T11:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=2922"},"modified":"2022-09-23T11:42:18","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T11:42:18","slug":"tribute-patrick-deller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2022\/09\/23\/tribute-patrick-deller\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute \u2013 Patrick Deller"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Patrick, who died in May this year, was prominent in the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood (SPBW), especially during his time as their national chairman and products officer. He was also active in CAMRA and many readers of London Drinker<\/em> will have known him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was born in 1951 in Central London and brought up in East Sheen, South West London, in a house opposite a pub. I first met him through mutual friends when I moved to Sheen in 1973 so had known him for 49 years. In those days that area was dominated by Watney\u2019s so we travelled to find real ale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few admin jobs in private industry he joined HM Customs and Excise where he stayed for the rest of his working life. Early days there meant meeting a variety of colourful characters and he revelled in telling us great stories of their misdemeanours. Some of the work involved visiting breweries too. For a while he was working in Southend on Sea where Excise colleagues introduced him to the delights of the excellent Rochford beer festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through other friends he heard about and joined the SPBW (in the 1980s I believe) and became a stalwart of the Central London branch, organising many pub evaluation walks (as the branch called them) in meticulous detail. Later he joined the national committee of the SPBW and eventually became national chairman, successfully navigating the society through a turbulent period. After standing down as chair he dealt with products and was innovative in finding good new suppliers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His other interests were numerous and included history (especially castles), canals, sailing, amateur dramatics, and singing (notably with the St Bartholomew\u2019s Hospital choir). In addition, food, wine and Scotch whisky were pursued with relish; he also home brewed beer from scratch ingredients, which was not an easy task in a small flat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His sudden death was a shock to us all and we have lost a true gentleman who rarely had a bad word for anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The photo shows David (right) making a presentation during the SPBW\u2019s National Weekend on the Isle of Man in 2018.
David Laing<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patrick, who died in May this year, was prominent in the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood (SPBW), especially during his time as their national chairman and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tribute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2926,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions\/2926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}