It is a sedate summer’s afternoon in the bar of The Globe in Topsham, five miles outside Exeter. Wimbledon is on the big screen, with the sound turned down, and there are five other customers inside. More sit around the outside tables at the back of this former coaching inn owned by St. Austell Brewery. I amble to the bar: “pint of Proper Job please.”

“This and Tribute are our two bestsellers,” the young bartender replies. “I drink it myself and think part of its appeal is that it has a nice hoppiness. People really go for it.”

Settled at my table, I look about and see that out of the five drinkers in the room four have a pint of Proper Job. The bartender is correct. In the interests of research I leave my pint for a moment and view the gathering of drinkers outside. A brief if unscientific scan around the tables and the sight of familiar branding on glasses suggests that more Proper Job is being drunk by the assembled drinkers. A man wearing a t-shirt that reads: ‘Old Guys Rule’ sees me looking about and lifts a half-full glass in salute. Naturally, it’s a Proper Job.

I return inside and look at my pint, which gleams like a drop of golden sun. It has a fluffy, creamy head, having been pulled through a sparkler, as is common for all of St Austell’s cask beers, (a practice instituted when a new head brewer, Roger Ryman, was appointed in 1999, a legacy of his home, the Wirral, perhaps, or even from his previous job at Maclay’s in Scotland.) This firm head of foam is a snow drift of surety that as soon as I have taken a mouthful I’ll be governed by an urge to stay for another. I pick up aromatics of spice, sticky, resiny pine and wisps of ripe pineapple, melon and guava on the nose. The same tropical fruits as well as light citrus, pine and grain turn up on the palate before it finishes with a striking bitterness that lingers like the memory of a long lost love. I swoop on the beer like a hawk on its prey. My glass is soon empty and I head back to the bar.

***

Proper Job is an unsung pioneer. Before Thornbridge Jaipur and BrewDog Punk IPA it was one of the earliest British-brewed American-style IPAs, initially brewed in 2004 for St Austell’s Cornish beer festival, held at the brewery each November. Then it was 5.5%, before dropping to 4.5% the following year (although it remains at 5.5% in bottle and can.) It is a dream of the Yakima Valley with Willamette and Chinook hops for bitterness, the duo joined by Cascade for aroma. Its malt comes from Cornwall—home-grown Maris Otter—which in 2025 celebrated its 60th consecutive harvest. At its start it was an outlier of a beer, hoppier than the majority of beers brewed in the UK at the time. What was even more surprising was that it came from a family owned brewery with its roots in the 19th century. Due to its own sizable influence we are rightly celebrating 20 years of Jaipur this year, but Proper Job too deserves its celebration.

The head brewer and developer of the recipe was Roger Ryman, who sadly died in May 2020. He had joined the brewery in the late 1990s and shook up the image of what was considered a rather provincial brewery with the release of Tribute, St. Austell’s other flagship beer. From the start of his time at St. Austell he had been travelling to see Yakima’s hop-growers, which is where he first fell in love with Willamette (also used in Tribute.) In September 2003 he joined Paul Corbett, Managing Director of hop suppliers Charles Faram, along with a couple of other brewers: John Bryan from Oakham Ales in Peterborough, and Andrew Whalley from York Brewery (who now also works at Faram’s.)

“The Yakima trips didn’t seem to be too significant at the time,” Paul tells me. “We were all just looking to find the best hops; me for my customers, the brewers to get the best for their beers. The trips have since proven to be life-changing—and I don’t use that word lightly—for many of us who made the effort.”

Back then the British traditional beer market was dominated by bitters and golden ales, with porters and stouts in the second row. American IPAs from Goose Island and Victory were brought in to be sold at now-defunct supermarket chain Safeway’s by the company’s visionary (and sadly missed) beer buyer Glenn Payne, but it was another IPA that inspired Ryman. This was the Portland-located BridgePort, which he had tasted when judging beer with the brewery’s then brewmaster, (and now brewing consultant) Karl Ockert.

“Roger and I became good friends and regularly bounced brewing ideas and questions off each other,” Karl tells me. “I had judged beer with him at the International Brewing Awards in 2002, 2004 and 2005. During our judging periods and other hop selection trips (we live close to Yakima,) he and I discussed American IPAs which even then were still a bit novel.”

“Our BridgePort IPA was of keen interest to him, and we discussed different American hop varieties and brewing methods to produce an IPA. From the discussions Proper Job was born. Although not an exact duplicate of our long-retired IPA, it’s pretty close and I enjoy a pint or two whenever I can get over the UK.”

““This firm head of foam is a snow drift of surety that as soon as I have taken a mouthful I’ll be governed by an urge to stay for another.””

I can confirm Karl’s observation from a 2015 visit to the taproom of the now closed BridgePort brewery. His IPA was like drinking Proper Job, with its ripe tropical fruit and pine notes on the nose and palate. I became so excited at the similarity that I didn’t exactly endear myself to my neighbour who was watching baseball on the TV screen by muttering “and I thought cricket was boring.”

A few years earlier, in 2009, Roger told me about a challenge Karl had set him during one of his visits.

“During one visit I took a week out to spend time brewing with a good friend Karl Ockert from Bridgeport Brewery,” he said. ”He makes a fabulous IPA, and said that on his UK visits he found British beers just a little tame, although after a few days he did get his head around the idea of a ‘session’ beer, a foreign concept in the States. He then challenged me to produce a proper “hoppy” IPA for the UK market.”

Which he did.

***

So what is the significance of Proper Job? First of all, it has survived the ups and downs of the last 20 years in the British brewing industry, including the explosive growth in new breweries (and their attendant decline), a change in drinking habits, cost of living increases and the effects of lockdowns on the pub trade. Secondly it is concrete evidence of Roger’s influence, as well as his openness to US beer, when only a few like Meantime’s Alastair Hook or Oakham’s John Bryan celebrated the verve and vigour of the approach American breweries took to hops. It also emerged on the eve of the great deluge of ‘craft’ IPAs such as the aforementioned Jaipur and Punk IPA as well as examples from the likes of Magic Rock, Buxton and The Kernel, which is perhaps why it is often forgotten. It has also remained on cask where its subtleties of flavour really push their way to the fore.

Perhaps we are so used to non-cask IPAs and bold hopping that it is easy to forget Proper Job and its subtle bitterness. Even though it is only 4.5% this is a result of Roger’s devotion to the idea of sessionability.

“If you want an IPA but have never had one, this is the one to get,” Georgina Young, Roger’s successor as St. Austell head brewer, tells me when we meet at one of St Austell’s Exeter pubs, the Mill on the Exe. “It’s a great example of a punchy, hoppy IPA. To me it represents a real ‘god I really want a Proper Job lightning hop tingling on the tongue’ moment, it’s an exciting beer to drink and I think that is the draw of it.”

“If I am going out for a ‘watering’ pint I will go for a Tribute,” she adds. “If something is going to excite me then it will be a Proper Job. Roger was very much into his Def Leppard, AC/DC, metal, he loved it. When you sit and drink Proper Job you can feel that. It is quite heavy metal, a bit scratchy.”

““If you want an IPA but have never had one, this is the one to get.””

— Georgina Young, St. Austell Brewery

A few weeks after we met, Georgina’s role as custodian of Roger’s legacy was further cemented when, in August 2025, Proper Job won Champion Bottled Beer of Britain at CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival in Birmingham.

To get another view of Proper Job’s place in the world, I returned to The Globe where I shared a pint with longtime CAMRA member Martin Shepherd, who often pops into the pub on Sunday afternoons.

“Proper Job is a very refreshing and pleasantly hoppy beer,” Martin tells me. “It’s not over hoppy but just right. It’s one of those beers I usually go for and I drank it fairly early on. I had heard about Roger Ryman and knew he had done a lot to reestablish St Austell as a great real ale brewery.”

That is another aspect of Proper Job: the way in which it stands as a testimony and memorial to Roger Ryman, and also a celebration of a life that ended too soon. For Paul Corbett, it is both a great beer and an enduring legacy of a good friend.

“I love Proper Job,” Paul says, “I love West Coast IPAs generally. They remind me of a wonderful time and many great memories. Moments that we all took for granted at the time but that we now look back on with great joy. It is a classic example of the style and one of my go to beers when I see it on the bar. I can never just have just one!”

“To me it’s not just a beer,” he adds. “It’s a legacy of a good friend and fellow seeker of great hop flavours. Roger, John, Andrew and my brother were my best men at my wedding. I think that says it all really.”