Jaipur IPA

[Random Badger]

I've enjoyed cask Jaipur IPA many times in pubs and seem to recall the canned/bottled version being alright. Drank a can of it last night (first in a while) and it wasn't anywhere near as nice as I was expecting. Anyone else got a view on this? Has it changed, was it always poor in cans, or was this perhaps just a duff batch?

 

[Clint]

Last I tried was in a pub in York called the Market Cat,which I think is owned by Thornbridge. It was average.

 

[soupdragon]

Cutbacks.
A good beer gets established then the accountants get their hands on the recipe and it's never the same. Very sad

Cheers Tom

 

[MickDundee]

I’ve always been underwhelmed by it. It’s held up as some kind of benchmark of modern British beers, but it’s pretty bland IMO.

 

[RichardM]

Have a look at this to get some recent opinions on it

 

[Sadfield]

Great beer, great brewery, let down by the very shoddy way most shops and supermarkets distribute and store beer.

 

[Clint]

Great beer, great brewery, let down by the very shoddy way most shops and supermarkets distribute and store beer.

Doesn't account for the pub...

 

[Random Badger]

Have a look at this to get some recent opinions on it

I've not seen one of those tasting sessions before, but some interesting comments about people experiencing can variability of Jaipur.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Two long-reads about Jaipur :
https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/blo...r-how-thornbridge-jaipur-changed-british-beer
https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2021/5/13/2021/making-of-a-classic-thornbridge-jaipur

 

[Sadfield]

Doesn't account for the pub...

Ah yes, cask ale. Storage and dispense doesn't get more consistent than this.

 

[clib]

I remember Jaipur being lovely when it first hit the scene, but it deteriorated a long time ago. I haven't drunk it in years cos it became so disappointing. It could have improved in that time without me knowing, I guess!

 

[Rakey]

I've enjoyed cask Jaipur IPA many times in pubs and seem to recall the canned/bottled version being alright. Drank a can of it last night (first in a while) and it wasn't anywhere near as nice as I was expecting. Anyone else got a view on this? Has it changed, was it always poor in cans, or was this perhaps just a duff batch?

They use different yeast from the cask version (Ale yeast = S-04) and the keg/small pack uses (US west cost - US-05)

 

[Hanglow]

Yeah I always thought of it as a great cask beer that doesn't hold up as well in other formats. Add the mentioned typically british approach to storing beer ....

Not had it from cask in a number of years now though.

Their cask yeast was the Holts yeast, then someone on Jims mentioned they changed to the TT yeast

 

[StJayJay]

When I first tried it, it was totally different to anything you could easily get your hands on. In pubs and supermarkets there was little variety, some good quality ales around but fairly traditional styles and the only thing a bit different was Belgian beers. Jaipur came along and it was quite unique. I don’t get that wow factor from it anymore; I wonder how much is a quality issue as they ramped up production and maybe tweaked recipes to work at scale etc. or is it more that the explosion of craft beer since has made Jaipur more standard, middle-of-the-road, as brewers are constantly doing all sorts of new weird and wonderful things.

 

[NormanHurst]

I personally quite like Jaipur but acknowledge it doesn't stand out from the crowd anymore. Is it a victim of its own success?

I think I have read the recipe is (largely) unchanged, but I especially compared to some other beers like Punk.

If that is so what was groundbreaking and innovative 16 years ago is positively mainstream now. Our expectations and experience as drinkers, let alone as homebrewers, means that our tastes and demands evolve and grow.

A once exciting beer, starts to look a bit meh in the face of do many other options. It can remain an 'important brand in the recent history of British beer, it is just that it is now one of many similar styles on the shelves.

 

[clib]

I'm not sure Jaipur was really ground breaking? I was drinking American hopped cask ales in the late 90s. Here in Manchester. I'm sure Manchester wasn't unique. Maybe Jaipur reached a wider audience?

 

[StJayJay]

I'm not sure Jaipur was really ground breaking? I was drinking American hopped cask ales in the late 90s. Here in Manchester. I'm sure Manchester wasn't unique. Maybe Jaipur reached a wider audience?

I don’t think they were the first to do the style outside of the US but they were the first to properly break through with that style. It was a pretty niche thing then when it came out in 2005.

 

[clib]

I don’t think they were the first to do the style outside of the US but they were the first to properly break through with that style. It was a pretty niche thing then when it came out in 2005.

In some places more than others I think. It barely registered in Manchester, there were plenty of American style pales around well before 2005. Perhaps Jaipur went nationwide before others did?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

All these things get kinda complicated, there tends to be "shoots" popping up all over the place that stay pretty local, and then suddenly one of them takes off and is the one that gets remembered - you see that Stateside with the likes of Bert Grant and Jack McAuliffe being relatively forgotten whereas everybody knows Ken Grossman (Sierra Nevada) and Fritz Maytag (Anchor).

Yes, in Manchester you had Brendan Dobbin at West Coast Brewery and Tony Allen first with Oak Brewery in Ellesmere Port and then the Phoenix Brewery in Heywood, there was Sean Franklin at Roosters and John Wood/John Bryan at Oakham. But they were mostly working with the more "traditional" US hops like Cascade, Mt Hood and Willamette.

Jaipur gets attention partly I suspect for being one of the first to get significant distribution outside its immediate area and also for being the link between Kelham Island (Pale Rider winning CBOB in 2004 is one of the landmarks of British beer history) and Brewdog.

As an aside, here's a recipe from Brewstore :
http://www.brewstore.co.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Jaipur-Recipe.pdf

 

[Sadfield]

Using America hops wasn't anything new to British brewing in the 1890s.

I think Jaipur just captured imaginations with the name and pushing the IPA story. In a way that, say, White Shield didn't.