So I’m a little late to the party. What else is new. A few months ago, I picked up some Newcastle Scotch Ale, a beer that is as Newcastle parent Heineken describes “Inaugural Beer in a Series of “Collaboration Editions” Created with Venerable European Breweries”.  Newcastle Scottish Ale is a collaboration with the Caledonian Brewery of Edinburgh, Scotland, and in fact the beer is brewed there. It says so right on the label.

Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to mention that Heineken also owns the Caledonian Brewery, which it obtained more or less when it bought Scottish and Newcastle. Still, Caledonian is a highly respected brewer of unquestionable pedigree, and they are Edinburgh’s oldest existing brewer.

From the bottle label:

Scotch Ale is a classic brew that originated in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 18^th century. Rich, full-flavoured and fulfilling, our Scotch Ale is a blend of malts with toffee notes and a mellow hop. The beauty of this style is its fulsome malt character that is simply mouth-watering.

Newcastle Scotch Ale has an alcohol content of 6.4% by volume with 40 IBUs. It was reasonably priced at $8.99 a six-pack. Heineken calls this a one-off sold until end of February 2015, but I still see it floating around. Let’s hope they reconsider and brew this again, because it is very good my friends.

Newcastle Scotch Ale pours to a beautiful brown color tinged with red with a thick creamy head formation and a rich buttery, flinty nose. Taking a sip, the beer has those wonderfully Scottish buttery flinty notes laced with soft burnt treacle, just what I want in the style. There’s also butterscotch, raisin and toasted nuts, too. The beer is slightly sweet but an herbal, grassy hop bitterness balances it in the finish.

This is extremely well done, a very nice Scottish (but not Scotch) ale for me, though it does begin to straddle the line. As this style goes, I might like it second only to Belhaven. It’s that good.



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