Thornbridge Jaipur & BrewDog Punk IPA

The origin stories of two of the UK’s most influential beers are helplessly intertwined. You may already know that brewers Martin Dickie and Stefano Cossi were involved in the development of Jaipur, shortly after Thornbridge was established in 2005—and only a moment before Dickie went on to co-found BrewDog and release Punk in 2007.

Back then, both beers were similar in taste, appearance, and ABV. Jaipur still floats at 5.9%, but Punk, which used to measure in at 6%, is now a more supermarket-friendly 5.6%. In their heydays, both beers used pale malts alongside liberal amounts of New Zealand and North American hops. And they’ve changed over the past decade, either a little or drastically, depending on who you speak to. But if they’ve evolved, so has the market around them—and this is due, in part, to the breadth of their influence.



Punk is arguably the more recognisable beer these days—it even has its own TV ad, which first aired during Season 8 of Game of Thrones—but what would it have been without Jaipur? I’ll leave that answer to the philosophers among you.

Matthew Curtis

Marble Pint

Pint is a beer that’s very close to my heart—I was lucky enough to do the first brew of it way back in 2007. It was a Saturday morning and a first date with my now-partner, Janine, who is also a brewer. It was also the first time we had used non-organic hops at Marble: Liberty and some New Zealand varieties. We tweaked the hops over the years, but the basic premise for Pint remained the same: a dry, bitter, low-gravity golden ale with mountains of fruity, tropical hop character.

We could never make enough of it, especially as it became somewhat fashionable after winning at loads of beer festivals. It also helped that a few beer writers and beer geeks championed it on Twitter and elsewhere. To James [Campbell], Colin [Stronge] and I, it was just the kind of beer we wanted to drink.

We only ever made it in cask—big aroma charge, dry-hopped in the fermenters, then each cask was dry-hopped too, without exception. When I left for Thornbridge, I didn’t drink it for years—maybe because I was too emotionally attached to Marble, and I wanted the happy memories to remain. Eventually I got over myself, of course. I’ll happily drink it these days. It’s changed, but then everything always does.



Dominic Driscoll

Fyne Ales Jarl

Now almost 10 years old, Jarl was one of the first UK beers to showcase Citra, which quickly became craft beer’s favourite shade of “juicy.” Citra shapes Jarl’s aromatic stratosphere of kiwi and grapefruit, but the core of this majestically sinkable 3.8% cask beer is lightly chewy, extra pale malt on a tightrope of cleansing bitterness. It melts and lasts on the palate like lemon cake.



Jarl remains a welcome port in the storm of “new” on any tap list, displaying vibrancy and restraint in equal measure. It arrived a little too early, perhaps, yet has become all the more necessary with each passing trend.

Chris Hall

Moor So’Hop

It seems somewhat absurd today that Moor’s decision to stop using finings in their cask beers was cause for controversy in the early 2000s, but a quick Google search throws up a torrent of articles from aspiring beer bloggers with titles such as “Is Britain Ready for Cloudy Beer?”

Alongside the now-forgotten put-down of “London Murky,” aimed at breweries such as The Kernel, “cloudy” beer was very much taboo before Moor came along and challenged people’s perceptions and prejudices with one simple idea: “unfined beer tastes better.” Moor put their money where their mouths were, and in side-by-side comparisons on the bar, the unfined versions of beers such as Revival, Raw, Nor’Hop and So’Hop prevailed. They’ve remained “cloudy” ever since.

So’Hop represented so much that was right about beer back then. In addition to being hazy and unfined, it was sessionable, and brewed with hops exclusively from the Southern Hemisphere, which, at the time, were some of the very best in the world. It has gone on to gain countless accolades, but its greatest achievement is its ability to stand strong—almost 10 years since its launch, and despite some formidable competition—as one of the finest pale ales brewed in the UK.

Jonny Hamilton

The Kernel Table Beer

Regardless of the table beer’s long history, both at home and in Europe, the first example of the style that will spring to mind for many British drinkers is The Kernel’s. A stalwart of the low-ABV category, this pale ale, brewed with an ever-changing roster of hops, is testament to their brewers’ skill. With Table Beer, The Kernel proved that neither flavour nor balance need to be sacrificed when making so-called “small beers,” and so helped open the door to innumerable other low-ABV beers. It’s still, in my mind, the best easy-drinking, session beer on the market.

Lily Waite

