Brewery: Hall & Woodhouse (Badger)
Location: Blandford St Mary, Dorset, England
ABV: 4.5%
Version: Bottled
Source: Sainsbury’s

Badger Golden Glory has to be the most insanely cheerful and downright pleasant summer ale I sampled last year.

The effect begins with a fresh, zesty aroma that floods out of the bottle and continues as the beer pours a quite wonderful orange-gold colour with a thick, frothy head. The first mouthful delivers a big hit of honey, orange and spices with a rich, satisfying mouth-feel and there’s a lingering fruitiness that brings to mind all sorts of citrus flavours – particularly nectarine and grapefruit – as well as the promised melon and peach from the label.

All in all, this one really is summer in a bottle; drinking it in December made me hugely nostalgic for the long, balmy days of August (not necessarily August 2008 mind you…) and I’ll definitely be stocking up when the weather starts to warm up a bit. Can’t wait for a long weekend with some decent sunshine: a chance to fire up the barbecue and enjoy a few bottles of this one with friends. Lovely stuff.

Brewery: Farson’s
Location: Mriehel, Malta
ABV: 3.8%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: St Julian’s, Malta

One very fond memory (among many) I have of our two holidays in Malta to-date is that of enjoying an early evening bottle (or two) of Hopleaf (the original, not the new, ‘smooth and creamy’, gassed-up variant) before venturing out in search of food and an evening’s entertainment.

Hopleaf is one of those perfect holiday beers: best drunk cold, it has a crisp, hoppy bite (much more so than it’s stable-mate, Cisk lager) and a lightly effervescent finish, and it goes down a treat as the sun sinks slowly over the holiday horizon and you remind yourself that you’re currently about 1,800 miles away from home and everything you’ll have to get the hell on with once you get back there…

At the end of our latest Malta holiday (which was round about this time last year, near enough), I brought home the last of a dozen bottles that I’d put in the hotel room fridge at the start of the week. Upon returning to Manchester, I placed said bottle in the fridge whilst making a solemn vow to save it for the sunniest day I could find. This year’s summer turning out to be as crappy as it did meant that that solitary bottle lurked in our fridge until one (in fact, the one) glorious Sunday in mid-August, when Jo and I finally got the chance to light up the new brick barbecue, char-cook a few bangers and veggie skewers and sit outside on the new garden furniture (which we made use of exactly once this “summer” as well).

Cracking open the Hopleaf, I savoured the tantalisingly light aroma, before pouring the light, frothy-topped, golden nectar into a tall pint glass. A couple of gulps, eyes closed and – yes – we really could be back on a Malta, with nothing to do the next day other than ride a Maltese bus of doom* down to Valletta, there to sit outside a café in the main square, eating huge plates of salad and reading Tim Willocks’ The Religion (the perfect place to read that rather fine novel, let me tell you) until it was time to wonder idly on to somewhere else…

I heaved a pretty big sigh once I’d finished that one, I can tell you. I’ve never seen Hopleaf on the shelves in the UK, although Farson’s does have an export operation, so it’s technically feasible that I might, one day. Although to be honest, I rather suspect it’s one of those beers – like the Dorada that I usually drink when we’re out in the Canary Islands – that probably tastes much better on its home territory. So maybe I’ll leave it for our hat-trick visit to Malta, whenever that might turn out to be.

Brewery: Greene King
Location: Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, England
ABV: 4.1%
Version: Bottled
Source: Sainsbury’s

Completing a recent trio of summer beers (how’s that for hope springing eternal?) Greene King Sun Dance – a new seasonal beer released this year, which probably explains (although doesn’t excuse) the lack of information about the beer on the Greene King website – is simply billed as “light and refreshing with floral and fruity hop aromas” on the back label.

As you can see via the clear bottle, it’s a rich, amber brew and it pours with almost no head and just a slight effervescence. The flavour is surprisingly sweet, rich and caramel-esque, which seems a tad unusual for a summer ale, at least judging by the ones I’ve tried so far this year. But it is still quite light and refreshing, as advertised, although I’m not too sure about those aromas. But then, perhaps my nose needs training or something as aroma is the element of a beer’s make-up that I often seem to have bother with…

Anyhow, overall I think I enjoyed this one a fair bit more than I was expecting to, mainly because of its maltier characteristics (which are generally my sort of thing), making it a summer beer I’d happily try again if the opportunity presented itself.

[Aside: I think there might be a few bottles left in my local Sainsbury's, come to think of it, although their summer beer promotion is grinding to a halt, so they're a bit low on stock. In fact, they've already completely run out of Crazy Dog Stout and several others, but everything else seems to be down to two-thirds the original price. Worth another look...]

Brewery: Theakston’s
Location: Masham, North Yorkshire, England
ABV: 4.1%
Version: Bottled
Source: Sainsbury’s

The back-label explains the cricketer on the front: “Named after an old brewing company we took over in 1919 … It is rumoured that Lightfoot’s were taken over because they had a better cricket team…”

Lightfoot Bitter is an incredibly pale golden colour, lightly effervescent, with a very thin head. It has a distinctly hoppy nose and a very sharp, dry flavour to match – an initial sharp burst of hops, with just a hint of chocolate lurking in the background there?

I couldn’t detect the promised ‘peach-like’ elements, but I’m not a huge fan of peaches, so I’m not sure I’d know what I was looking for. There was a faint tang of something there though, which I’m prepared to concede may have been peach-like.

Overall: a light, easy-drinking, summery bitter that would go very nicely with a ploughman’s lunch, especially if both were consumed on a sunny day up in the wilds of the North York Moors…

Brewery: George Gale & Co (Fuller’s)
Origin: Horndean, Hampshire, England
ABV: 3.8%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: Sainsbury’s

After sipping my way through a series of stronger ales recently, I thought I’d slow things down a little with a quick summer brew and George Gale & Co’s Summer Breeze seemed to fit the bill.

The label promises “light, smooth and crisp” and that’s pretty much what you get. But the pour is a bit on the thin and watery side, there’s almost no head at all and whilst there’s a faint, fruity flavour to begin with, that quickly fades. There’s little else to report: it’s not particularly bitter, not particularly sweet. All in all, it’s inoffensive enough, but rather unmemorable as a result.

Chilled and served al fresco on a hot day, Summer Breeze would probably make an acceptable alternative to whatever fizzy, chemical-raddled lager everyone else was quaffing, and if you had a lager-drinking friend you wanted to wean onto stronger and more interesting stuff, then it could make a decent starting point. But it’s not one I’ll be rushing to re-visit.

Brewery: Fuller’s
Location: London, England
ABV: 5.0%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: Sainsbury’s

With a giant bee on the honeycomb patterned label and a major clue in the title, there are no prizes for guessing the predominant flavour of Fuller’s organic summer beer. It pours like liquid honey as well, settling to pale gold with a thin head of small bubbles and possesses a sugary, citrusy aroma that offers just a hint of what’s in store.

And that’s a syrupy sweetness; whole gobfuls of the stuff. In fact it’s so sweet I’d hazard a guess it’s practically an alcopop (or I would do, if I’d ever drunk such a thing on which to base a comparison, but I’m proud to say I haven’t). It could even be verging on mead territory? It’s been a few years since I last sampled actual fermented honey though, so again I’m not 100% confident on that one.

Okay, sticking to what I do know: despite the honey, honey, honey, there are more complex malt and hop tones that develop as the drink goes on. And at 5.0% abv it’s deceptively strong as well: the buzz creeps up on you quite pleasantly, even as that sweetness continues to lull you into a false sense of security (“see how light and tasty I am..? Why, I’m practically a shandy… Go on, have another…”)

So, potentially dangerous stuff, then. Luckily though, it’s so sweet that your tooth enamel will most likely start screaming for mercy after a pint… Or two, tops. But it’s damn tasty, all the same, so I’d be prepared to take the risk with a draft variant sometime. You know… for the team.

In a fit of what appears to be sheer optimism (judging by the forecast for the weekend, at least), The Independent ran an article on Monday that featured Roger Protz’s ‘Ten Best Summer Beers’:

• Adnams East Green
• Fuller’s Organic Honey Dew
• Meantime IPA
• Shepherd Neame Whitstable Bay
• Budweiser Budvar
• Duvel
• St Austell Clouded Yellow
• Young’s Kew Gold
• Brakspear Oxford Gold
• Goose Island IPA

I posted tasting notes on the Adnams East Green yesterday and the Kew Gold back at the end of June. I’ve got the Fuller’s Organic Honey Dew lined up next. Tried the Whitstable Bay and Oxford Gold a while back, but I’d need to re-visit before I could comment.

As for the others: Budvar is one of the better-flavoured commercial lagers out there, the Meantime IPA is on sale in our local Tesco’s and Duvel is available pretty much anywhere, so shouldn’t be too hard to track down. The Clouded Yellow I can’t drink (it’s a wheat beer and I have an Intolerance, or an allergy, or something – whatever, wheat is evil and makes me feel like crap after consuming it) and Goose Island is apparently only available in cases of 24 from T’Internets. Hmm.

This Saturday’s Independent Magazine carried an advert / feature placed by CAMRA, suggesting a selection of bottled ales and bitters that can be “served refreshingly cool… the perfect tipple to accompany summer barbecues at home or the pub.” 10 to 14 degrees celsius, ideally…

And the seven cool-ones of choice are:

• Wychwood Hobgoblin
• Fuller’s London Pride
• Caledonian Deuchars IPA
• Brakspear Brakspear Bitter
• Brains SA
• Sharp’s Doom Bar
• Greene King Greene King IPA

I can vouch for Hobgoblin, Deuchars IPA and Greene King IPA – all very nice indeed at cellar temperatures – although I wasn’t all that impressed when I tried a draught pint of Brakspear Bitter a couple of weeks ago (mind you, it was mid-session when I was on something much stronger and heavier, so maybe that wasn’t the best time to try it).

The last three are now on my ‘to try’ list. We’ve just had a brick barbecue built in the back garden (which could explain the recent spate of crap weather) so hopefully I’ll be able to get a few in for the first time we fire it up…