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Appearance:
Opens with a satisfying "hssst", the beer pours a burn orange/copper colour with yellow highlights at the edges of the glass. Pure white head with tight bubble. Not much of head retention but keeps a nice small cap. The beer does have a bit of chill haze/hop haze which is understanable with the amount of hops assed to the beer.
Aroma:
Nose is more nelson centric at first, with the grape/dank/overripe melon aromas. As the beer warms up you start picking up the sweet hop characteristics from the Motueka, pineapple/passion fruit/tropical fruit mix. The nose is more hop dominate, with a good malt back bone of caramel/bready tones. As the beer warms up a diacetyl note becomes more apparent, which was first a caramel aroma, but has now turned into a more butterscotch. Even so, the hops work quite well with the diacetyl.
Mouthfeel:
mouth feel is where the beer is at its weakest for me. The body of the beer is a bit light, when a bit of chewiness would have been nice to compliment the hops. The carbonation is pretty nice, with a slight effervescence on the palate with keep the fruity hop characters dancing on the palate. The beer has a nice dry finish which cleans the plate and gets it ready for the next hop assault.
Flavour:
Smooth upfront bitterness which quickly eases into a caramel/bread malt back bone. The Motueka hops come more out on the palate, with the passion fruit/tropical fruit mix keeping the taste buds tingling. I do pick up a bit of diacetyl, which comes across as butterscotch/caramel. A very tasty beer with the hops keeping you guess on what fruits you are picking up. The dry finish keeps the palate wanting more and cleaning it for the next sip.
Overall:
I like this beer, its fresh and fruity, the hops keep you guess on what fruit flavours you can pick out. The beer is more hop dominate, and the hops deliver. The only comment I have is that there is some diacetyl which comes across as a caramel at first, but as the beer warms up, turns more into a butterscotch. Now this does not make this a bad beer, if anything, the butterscotch plays very well with the dankness of the Nelson and the tropical fruit tones of the Motueka. I feel the body could have a bit more chewiness just to back up the hops a bit more and to give a bit more mouthfeel.
On a crappy raining day, doing chores around the house, the beer is going down smooth and really hitting the spot. I feel that it has great potential and looking forward to next years batch!
First Impression's Video:
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