Thornbridge Jaipur IPA

Working as a wine specialist for Waitrose often had its perks, I would often do tasting sessions as part of my role and not just of wine. Occasionally I would do beer or cider tastings, mix it up a little and help push new or promotional stock. The range of bottled beers including ales and continental lagers as I call them, or posh foreign beers. There were two bottles that particularly stood out to me from a small brewery called Thornbridge out of Bakewell, England. They had two beers on our new assortment, both had very well designed labels, one could even call them beautiful. One was a greenish-blue and the other was a bright orange not dissimilar to the Dutch national football teams kit.

It was long since forgotten until I rediscovered it at my local Wetherpsoon's pub, they had it on cask. After only having it in the bottle and remembering that I did enjoy it quite a lot, I took a gamble and ordered myself a half pint of Thornbridge Jaipur IPA.

It was a bit more cloudy than I remember but then again I don't remember exactly what it looked like and it was also out of the bottle before so would most probably been filtered and carbonated. It didn't have any bits floating in it and smelt exactly how you'd imagine an IPA should smell. I really have started to like the hoppy ales, as long they aren't too overpowering or bitter bordering on astringent. At 5.9% it's a pretty strong beer and after a pint and a half it was already leaving me with a slightly warming buzz.

If I didn't have to go to a monthly publicans meeting and then do a long shift at work I could have and would have stayed and drunk more and more and more until the liquid began flowing faster out than I could possibly get it in... by that I mean pissing it out as I tend to have quite a weak bladder and after only a pint will be pissing like a race horse all night long.

It was actually the fact that I had to go to this meeting which allowed me to rediscover this beer that I really enjoyed. I'm almost grateful for these bloody boring publican meetings.

I had a couple of pints of it the other night at the same Wetherspoon.

thornbridgebrewery