Niigata Golden Edinburgh is an English strong ale inspired by Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh. It’s based on their Niigata Edinburgh Premium Ale beer but contains extra malt and is conditioned for longer in the fermentation stages. It’s got an abv of 7% is a winter seasonal beer though I’ve seen it on sale throughout the year due to a year long shelf-life.
Thick and syrupy. More like cough syrup than a beer.
Niigata Golden Edinburgh Aroma and Taste
Making a beer named after a Scottish city but creating it under an English style of beer takes either serious guts and confidence in your product or is up for gaff of the year. When I asked a Scottish friend of mine, he laughed and was insulted, but not too much, as to why a scotch ale was not created instead? Who knows but it’s been made and we can’t change it.
Niigata Golden Edinburgh poured out a syrupy, treacle like colour that had next to no life in it, not even a head appeared on top. Ok, there were one or two bubbles that rose up but nothing more than that. It’s obvious that Niigata Beer have ramped up the malt level in here as the sickly, sweet, burnt caramel aroma, while not overpowering, is the dominant aroma from the beer. It’s a very heavy aroma that lingers in the air and in your nose so much so, that it was hard to determine if anything else was there.
And therein lies the problem with Niigata Golden Edinburgh – malts. Pushing the malt limit is akin to pushing the hop limit, but instead of something hoppy and bitter, you end up something sweet, perhaps sickly sweet. Niigata Golden Edinburgh is easy going if you’re sipping away, in front of a warm fireplace with hounds next to your feet but it is not a guzzling beer and neither is it refreshing. It’s dry, I’ll concede that to Niigata beer, and you know what, there was even a hint, a tiny one though, of some bitterness but not much.
Niigata Golden Edinburgh One Line Review
Niigata Golden Edinburgh is a sipping beer that deserves aging to mellow out some of the malt flavours.
Where to Buy Niigata Golden Edinburgh
Niigata Golden Edinburgh can be bought from the Niigata Beer online store here. We got out bottle as part of a set from Kishimoto here.
4 comments
Golden? Can’t believe you didn’t question that choice of title. That was bad enough. Niigata make some god awful beer and this, IMO is one of them.
I aged this one for a while so perhaps the flavours had mellowed out a bit. Not had a fresh one yet, but when I do, I’ll re review it. 😀
I just now (June 2016) drank a bottle of this black-coloured “golden” beer, made in November 2015 with a shelf life until October 2017. The caramel is nice, although in total I am not sure what this beer should be. A sweet stout maybe? I bought it last week, and to let it age, it would have to be in the fridge for another year, but I think the wife will not let me do that… It is too sweet for my taste.
Thanks for the comment, Oliver.
The makers classify it as a strong ale – but even then that’s a loose term. If you were to let it age then the sweetness would die down I guess. Not a bad idea there but need to clear the cellar a bit before buying more beer.