Reelin' in the years: the 00s

At the start of the new millennium, British brewers were inspired by the 1990s US craft beer movement, notably its West Coast IPAs. This, in combination with the introduction of SBR (Small Brewers [tax] Relief) by Gordon Brown's government in 2002, injected the British beer industry with a new lease of life. Thornbridge Brewery, near Bakewell in Derbyshire, started life in 2005, the same year it created Jaipur IPA. This highly influential 6% ABV IPA married traditional English cask with new American hops, such as Chinook, Cascade and Ahtanum. It introduced many British beer drinkers to powerful grapefruit and tropical fruit aromas. Martin Dickie, working at Thornbridge at the time, would later set up a new brewery near Aberdeen whose flagship beer stood on the shoulders of Jaipur, but had a more piney, resinous character. Aided by marketing as aggressive as Punk IPA's hoppiness, Brewdog set out to conquer the world and for a while, it did. Unfortunately, the brewery went into administration in March 2026. 

The 2000s were the decade of the gastropub. Too often these bore scant resemblance to an actual pub – restaurants in all but name. But some achieved the alchemy of serving Michelin-starred food in a relaxed and casual pub atmosphere. An exemplary 2000s gastropub that endures is the Griffin at Felin Fach in rural Wales. There, customers can still sip local cask ale by the log fire in the low-beamed pub or dine on Michelin Bib Gourmand food sourced from the pub’s organic garden. 

Also heading upmarket, snacks broke out of garish packaging and were often sold from large Kilner jars behind the bar. While peanuts were offered in ramekins, marinated olives, served with a stick, were newcomers. Amy Winehouse was a familiar presence in Camden pubs, the Hawley Arms and Dublin Castle, in the early 2000s. Appropriately, her music became ubiquitous in pubs later in the decade. With its retro jazzy swing, it was the perfect soundtrack for the gastropub’s distressed wood and mismatched furniture. Her cover of the Zutons’ Valerie remains a karaoke staple.