Beer Of The Month - June 2007

June 2007 was another reasonable month's drinking. I sampled 75 new beers during the month, and a fair few of them were pretty decent. I only visited one beer festival during the month, the Northampton BF, although I was there on the first two days of the month. I also visited two brewpubs: The Brunswick in Derby and The Fox and Hounds in Heacham. I also had trips to two great off licences: Beers Of Europe in Norfolk and Hogs Back Brewery in Surrey. I also had a few pub trips to Northampton, Nottingham and Leicester.

In spite of the fact that June is usually the month of the dull golden ale, I have enjoyed a number of very good cask ales this month. Alehouse Robust Porter was just that: a porter in the American mould with great hop levels, quite rare for this country. It had a sumptuous aroma. From the same brewery, I also enjoyed Halcyon Centennial and Balance And Poise, both lovely hoppy beers. Another great beer at the Northampton Fest was Rockingham Black Forest, a very drinkable stout. I drank Derby Dark Temptress in Leicester at Out Of The Vaults. This was a lovely chocolatey porter which went down very easily. Another hoppy beer I enjoyed was Phoenix Midsummer Madness in The Newshouse at Nottingham. The final two noteworthy cask ales of the month were both brewed by Brunswick: White Feather and Derailed, very different from each other, but both very nice. My cask ale of the month goes to Rockingham Black Forest which I am very pleased about as it is a Northamptonshire beer. It also is my English beer of the month.

Good bottled beers were abundant this month also. I had three great bottled beers from Scotland. The first one was Broughton The Ghillie which was suprisingly hoppy and tasted anything but Scottish. The second was Trossachs Lade Out. This is a dark 5.1% bottle conditioned beer. I had it down as a porter, but others have called it a mild. Whatever it is it's very very tasty and rich with good fruits and licquorice. The third was Black Isle Organic Yellowhammer. This is another hoppy beer which makes good use of the American cascade hop. Very enjoyable. I enjoyed two bottles from Mommeriete, a relatively new brewery from The Netherlands. These were Blond and Meibok both were full of flavour and body, and show that the brewery has great potential. I also enjoyed an unfiltered Kellerbier from Brauhaus Schweinfurt in Germany, a nice bready, malty lager. My 3000th beer since joining RateBeer: Ecaussinnes Archiduc de Nivelles was also enjoyable, although the ocassion maybe gave it an extra mark. My bottled beer of the month was Trossachs Lade Out. This was my first beer from City Of Stirling Brewery and thus wins my New Brewery Beer of the month also. It also wins the overall prize for Best Beer Of June 2007.