Beer Of The Month - October 2008

Better late than never, I am able now to do my Beer Of The Month post for October. It looks like I had just 45 new beers in the month, almost all of them cask ales with two beer festivals at both Oxford and Nottingham standing out.

The best beer I had at Oxford was Prospect Nutty Slack, an excellent roasty, yet fruity mild, which I was surprised to find out was the first beer from this Lancashire brewery I've had. The stand out beer at Nottingham was another one from a brand new brewery to me: Bollington White Nancy had lovely fresh orangey hops throughout. I'd mostly stuck to dark beers at the festival and this golden ale beat all of them. Honourable mention though needs to go to Mallinsons Mild Thing.

The best cask ale of the month though was drank in The Malt Shovel in Northampton; the long-named Empire Pandemonium Vanilla Porter was a magnificent melange of coffee beans and vanilla. I'd been tipped off by a colleague at work earlier in the day, and wasn't sure I fancied vanilla in a beer but this really worked.

Only one bottled beer stood out all month, but it was good enough to be overall Beer Of The Month. Adnams Innovation was available as a limited edition beer late last year rolling into this year, and came at a premium price in a presentation box. I had bottle number 740 and sadly have no more. It is, by a country mile, the hoppiest beer Adnams produce and at 6.7% has a great backbone to support the hops. I would be more than happy to see Adnams repeat this beer, but this time sell it without the packaging at a more realistic price.

I always choose a non-English beer of the month as well. In October the best I had was Mysterious Myrtle Stout from Wales' Purple Moose. This was an interesting stout with a little something added. It wouldn't win prizes most months, but there wasn't a lot of competition this time round.

Sorry the report's a little shorter this time but some of the memories have become a little distant!