Thornbridge

Thornbridge Brewery began in 2005 at Thornbridge Hall in the Peak District, when owners Jim Harrison and Simon Webster decided to revive the idea of brewing beer on the estate. The original brewery was installed in a converted joiner's and stonemason's workshop within the grounds, using a second-hand 10-barrel brewing system. Two young brewers, Martin Dickie and Stefano Cossi, were brought in to develop the beers, and they were given considerable freedom to experiment. Their first beer was Lord Marples, a traditional 4% English bitter, but it was their next project that would completely change the trajectory of the brewery. In June 2005, the pair brewed the first batch of Jaipur, a 5.9% IPA using American hops alongside a traditional British malt base. The beer was unlike almost anything being brewed commercially in Britain at the time and quickly attracted attention at beer festivals and beyond.

Jaipur is now one of the defining beers of modern British craft brewing. Rather than simply copying an American IPA, Dickie and Cossi effectively combined American hopping with British brewing traditions. Maris Otter malt provided a familiar English foundation, while American hops brought grapefruit, pine, citrus and floral aromas on a scale that was still unusual in Britain. At 5.9%, it was also considerably stronger and more intensely flavoured than the standard cask bitters dominating British pubs at the time. Crucially, Jaipur worked on cask as well as keg and bottle, helping bridge the gap between traditional British beer culture and the emerging American-influenced craft scene. Its success rapidly outgrew the tiny brewery at Thornbridge Hall, and within a few years demand had made a much larger production site necessary. Martin Dickie left Thornbridge in 2007 to co-found BrewDog, and the influence of the beer he helped create can be traced through much of the subsequent British IPA movement.

In 2009, Thornbridge opened the Riverside Brewery in Bakewell, giving the brewery the capacity to produce on a much larger scale while retaining the original Hall brewery for smaller batches and experimentation. The Riverside site has subsequently expanded several times, allowing Thornbridge to develop an increasingly broad portfolio. Jaipur remains the flagship, but the brewery has never been interested in being defined by one beer or one style. Over the years it has produced everything from traditional bitters and pale ales to pilsners, imperial stouts, barrel-aged beers, saisons, sour beers and heavily hopped modern IPAs. Beers such as Saint Petersburg, a Russian Imperial Stout originally brewed in 2005, demonstrated very early on that the brewery was willing to take traditional styles and reinterpret them with ingredients and techniques from the emerging American craft scene.

That experimental side has remained an important part of Thornbridge's identity. The brewery has produced hundreds of different beers, regularly working with other breweries and experimenting with unusual ingredients, fermentation techniques and ageing. Collaborations have included breweries such as Sierra Nevada, Brooklyn Brewery and Firestone Walker, while the barrel programme has produced everything from mixed-fermentation beers to heavily aged imperial stouts. The brewery's modern setup also allows it to maintain a smaller experimental operation alongside its main production, meaning the beers coming out of Thornbridge can range considerably in style. In 2024, Thornbridge went a step further by acquiring part of the historic Burton Union system retired by Carlsberg Marston's and installing it at Riverside. It is now the only brewery in the world operating a Burton Union system, with the first beer brewed through it being, appropriately enough, a Union version of Jaipur.

Despite its growth, Thornbridge remains strongly connected to its Peak District home. The brewery's name comes from Thornbridge Hall, and the landscape around Bakewell continues to feature prominently in the brewery's identity. The Riverside site now includes a taproom, shop, pizza kitchen and brewery experience, while the original Hall brewery remains in use for small-scale brewing and collaborations. Thornbridge has also developed its own pub operation through Thornbridge & Co, extending the brewery's presence into the wider hospitality world. Its beers are now exported to more than 35 countries, and the brewery produces around nine million pints a year, but the emphasis remains on combining consistency with experimentation rather than simply maximising volume.

Twenty years on, Thornbridge occupies an interesting position in British brewing. It is no longer a tiny brewery experimenting in a country-house outbuilding, but neither has it abandoned the creative approach that made its name. Jaipur remains a genuinely important British beer, while beers such as Lukas, Wild Raven, Saint Petersburg and the brewery's numerous limited releases show how broad the brewing operation has become. The combination of traditional British beer culture, American craft influences and a willingness to keep experimenting has been there since the first brews in 2005. That is ultimately what makes Thornbridge worth knowing: the brewery didn't simply benefit from the British craft beer boom, it was one of the breweries that helped create the conditions for it.