Beer Of The Month - September 2007

September was a quiet month for beer. I didn't go to any festivals or gatherings, just doing my drinking at home or at brief visits to the pub.

In total I had 53 new beers, the vast majority of which were cask ales.

The most suprising beer of the month was Milestone Olde Home Wrecker. I had this flavoursome Old Ale at The Malt Shovel in Northampton. Most of the previous Milestone beers I have had have been disappointing, and lacking flavour, but this is a beautiful beer full of fruity and bready malts, with hints of coffee. It was very tasty.

I had two good cask ales when I went drinking in in Leicestershire. Potbelly Welland Truly is brewed not far from me in Kettering. It is nicely hoppy with a definite US twang to it. At 4.9% it has a reasonable warmth from the alcohol and a good body. I also enjoyed Mayfields Auntie Myrtle's Premium Ale on the same day.

I went to The Criterion in Leicester while they were having a mini festival of Surrey and London beers. As well as the festival beers I drank some Oakham Haka. Oakham is a highly thought of award winning brewery, and this beer had a typical Oakham hoppiness. Additionally though it had sweet notes with hints of toffee, and was stronger than average at 5.7%. I also had what amounted to the best beer of the month: Ascot Posh Pooch is another English beer brewed with cascade hops from the US, and to be honest, I can't get enough of them. The cascades really worked here and the beer was fresh, bitter and extremely drinkable. It was my first beer from this Surrey brewery which has been going for just three months.

There have only been two stand out bottled beers this month. The first was a beer I brought back from GBBF. Haandbryggeriet Dark Force is an Imperial Stout, described by the brewery as "the only Imperial Wheat Stout in the known Universe". It looked beautiful in the glass and had great roasty tastes together with coffee and chocolate. It seemed very bitter to me but there was a worrying element to it, which may well have been the wheat. Although I enjoyed it, I think it was a little too complex for its own good. The other great bottled beer I had was the one I chose to toast Michael Jackson. Emersons 1812 IPA has wonderful hops. Thanks go to Kieran Haslett-Moore for telling me that the taste is distinctive due to the New Zealand hops it uses. It certainly doesn't taste very English which apparently it once did. It is the type of bottled beer I would happily drink over and over again. Without a doubt this was my bottled and non-English beer of the month.