India, September 2025: Effingut, one of India’s most pioneering and awarded craft breweries, has been invited to brew for the J D Wetherspoon Beer Festival 2025 – the UK’s largest celebration of beer, pouring across more than 900 pubs nationwide. For an independent brewery from India, this is a rare platform and a milestone moment on the global stage.
J D Wetherspoon Beer Festival
The J D Wetherspoon Beer Festival is a biannual celebration that transforms pubs across the UK into a stage for brewing innovation. Running this autumn from 1–12 October 2025, the festival will showcase 30 beers, including five international collaborations. For the very first time, a beer from India will be featured – a landmark moment for Effingut and a testament to the festival’s growing global outlook.
Hook Norton: 175 Years of Brewing Heritage
The invitation led to a landmark collaboration with Hook Norton Brewery, a family-owned British brewery that has been crafting traditional ales in Oxfordshire for over 175 years.
Founded in 1849, Hook Norton is one of Britain’s most iconic breweries, still proudly operating from its five-story Victorian tower. A rare example of traditional ‘tower’ brewing, the process flows with gravity from mash to racking, powered for over a century by a Buxton & Thornley steam engine that remains in working order today.
Effingut’s Founder and Head Brewer Manu Gulati personally travelled to the UK for the collaboration, carrying with him not just recipes and brewing expertise but also the flavours, philosophy, and story of Indian craft beer. At Hook Norton’s historic Victorian brewhouse, Gulati brewed alongside lead brewer Andy Thomas and his team – Robin Underwood, Rob Thompson, David Daniels, Tessa G, George Clarke, and Ed Clarke – bringing together two traditions separated by continents but united by a shared respect for craftsmanship.
The Beer: A Golden Ale with an Indian Twist
The collaboration beer is a golden ale reimagined through an Indian lens, brewed with English malts and Hook Norton’s classic cask techniques. At its core, it respects the heritage of a traditional British golden ale – bright, balanced, and eminently drinkable. But Effingut has layered in an unmistakable Indian character by infusing the brew with cardamom, coriander, and lemongrass.
On the pour, the beer shines with a radiant golden-amber hue, crowned by a soft, creamy head that signals its cask conditioning. The aroma is immediately inviting: crisp citrus and floral notes rise first, followed by delicate spice and a hint of earthiness. The palate opens clean and refreshing, with a gentle malt sweetness that gives way to botanical accents – lemongrass lending freshness, cardamom adding warmth, and coriander providing a subtle citrusy lift. The finish is smooth, medium-bodied, and softly spiced, leaving a lingering complexity that encourages another sip.
The result is a beer that is both familiar and unexpected – comforting to British cask ale drinkers yet intriguing for its layered spice and flavour philosophy. It is not simply a twist on a style, but a first-of-its-kind flavour exchange between India and Britain: a pint that tells a story of travel, culture, and craft.
A Cultural Dialogue in Every Pint
For Gulati, this is a deeply personal milestone. His own brewing journey began in England more than a decade ago, after a revelatory encounter with traditional English ale. Training at Brewlabs in Sunderland set him on the path that would eventually lead to founding Effingut in Pune – and now, full circle, to brewing a collaboration cask ale for British pubs.
“This is more than just a beer,” said Gulati. “It’s a meaningful cultural dialogue – where Indian spice and flavour philosophy meet the timeless precision of British brewing. For Effingut to represent Indian craft on this stage is both a tremendous honour and a responsibility we carry with pride.”
“Working with Manu was a real eye-opener. At Hook Norton we’re all about tradition, but he brought in cardamom, coriander, and lemongrass—flavours I’d never thought of putting in a beer. It actually worked beautifully with our style, and I’d say the end result really is tradition with a twist” states Andy Thomas, Lead Brewer at the Hook Norton Brewery
From Britain to India
The golden ale will pour across the UK from 1st to 12th October 2025 as part of the Wetherspoon Real Ale Festival, reaching thousands of drinkers who will experience Indian craft beer in their local pubs. And at the very same time, Effingut will bring the collaboration home.
From 1st October – 12th October 2025, the beer will also be available across Effingut’s outlets in Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, and Gurugram, giving Indian drinkers the chance to taste the very pint that carried their story across the world.
Effingut’s collaboration with Hook Norton is a statement about craft without borders: a beer that celebrates tradition, travel, and taste, while embodying Effingut’s True Craft ethos – global in ambition, authentic in execution.
Raise a glass in Britain or in India. From Oxfordshire to Pune, from Wetherspoon’s cask lines to Effingut’s taps – this is craft beer without boundaries.
