“From Upper Moutere’s Freestyle Farm we travel to America’s Yakima Valley for our second hop harvest collaboration with East Coast brewing legends Trillium. A hop free boil and massive dry hop addition of hand selected Mosaic and Citra create a giant juicy hazy homage to the hop growing mecca of Yakima Valley.”

Glassware: IPA

Appearance: Turbid light mustard colour with a fluffy two finger head. Laced well. Exactly how we expect NEIPAs to look.

Aroma: It’s got all the haze of a good NEIPA but all the vibrancy of west coast hops. Tonnes of oily citrus and pine, tropical fruits, stonefruits, fresh leafy herbs, mild juicy-ness and apricot. Lovely dry malt body full of oats and crusty white bread filling it out. Interesting, not as good as we had anticipated but we ain’t gonna complain!

Flavour: Wooowwww the overall smoothness is remarkable. Quite heavy on the fleshy stonefruits and tropical fruit i.e paw paw, melon, mango and apricot. Most of the citrus characters are drowned out. Hints of pine here and there with quite a strong presence of artificial juice/concentrate. Juicy, fruity and herbal to finish with good duration.

Mouthfeel: Super smooth and creamy. Flat-ish Co2, medium body. The 8% ABV.. where is it?! So well hidden.

Overall: We’ll probably be crucified by the cult followers but it’s really isn’t as great as we’d hoped. Sunrise Valley blows it out of the water in our opinion. It’s just a tad too sweet and sticky. Still, a decent drop though.