Good dark amber pour, visible aeration, low sudsy head. Nose is dominated by sweet malt and earthy NZ hops. Not quite as punchy as I would have expected but nice and lush regardless. Not sure it has the same swampy (in a good way) character as the original.
Mouthfeel is good, beer itself is really deep dank and earthy with a punch of muted bitterness coming along for the ride. It´s a pretty powerful beer this in its way but sticks to the low and middle notes with nothing really rising above that chorus. Feels a bit less balanced than the other and as a result slightly hard work as opposed to the massively moreish character of the superb normal drop. Slight bit of booze on both the nose and the flavour.
It turns out this beer was made in two batches as it were, to catch the fresh hop characters of the Motueka and Nelson Sauvin strains which must be harvested at different times. The beers were then mixed together to form this final product. I am not sure how much this mixing would influence the beer but this progeny seems really quite markedly different to its predecessor.
This is a good beer and in isolation would rate very well indeed. In this context though I actually like the original better, and by a distance too. It's just that saying that feels kind of like the sporting upset of the season.. 8.0
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