Newcastle sent me another round of beer, this time their newest limited edition beer the Newcastle Winter IPA.

Looks

The Newcastle Winter IPA pours with a great light tan head which lasted for a little over a minute. When it dissipated though, the head was completely gone. There wasn’t much lacing on the glass. The beer is clear and has a good dark amber color.

Aroma

This is another Newcastle beer where I really didn’t notice any aroma. I even passed it around, but no one can really notice any aroma. This seems somewhat odd for an IPA. I would have thought there would be some aroma, at least from the hops.

Taste

I enjoyed the flavor. I think too many IPAs are liquid hops, however the Newcastle Winter IPA was much smoother. It might be closer to what most people consider a English Pale Ale. The flavor is definitely hop forward, but not so much where you can’t taste anything else like many extreme IPA beers. The carbonation was a bit higher than I’d like, but that might be because it was in a bottle. I’ll have to look around to find the beer on tap.

The hop flavor lasts a bit on the aftertaste, but it’s more of a bitter aftertaste instead of a particular hop. There is a bit of bready malt flavor up front, but I didn’t think it was anything deep or complex.

Results

I was a bit late with this review. I tried the beer back in November, but I’m just getting around to turning my notes into an article. My bad. Hopefully you can still get this beer.

I think this beer is another good session beer. The Newcastle Winter IPA is definitely one of the better offerings from a large brewery. The lower alcohol combined with the mellow flavor means you could have quite a few. I don’t think the beer will wow anyone, but I think it would definitely work well with a wider audience. People who are turned off by very hoppy beers might still like this IPA.

You can find more information about their beer on their website.  The site has a ton of Flash, so you’ll have to click around to find the page.

I’d rate the beer 7 hops out of 10.

Brewery: Scottish & Newcastle UK Ltd.
Country of Origin: United Kingdom
Style: English IPA
ABV: 5.2% ABV
Serving Type: 12oz Bottle