Thought I should chuck some tasting notes up for some of my beers. More as a record that I can go back to in the future when trying to remember specific characteristics.
Tasted 18.10.2011 – Bottled 18.09.2011
New Zealand Pale Ale hopped with NZ Cascade, Nelson Sauvin and Pacifica. Large hop additions at 10, 5 and 0 mins. No 60 minute hop addition. 4.1% Abv. Mashed at 69 deg C. 83% Pale, 8% Med Crystal, 7% Munich II, 2% Carapils.
As with all highly hopped beers, the amount of fresh hop flavour and aroma seems to decrease over time. I have been drinking this beer from about a week after bottling and think it was optimum at about 3 weeks.
taste 18/10/11 – The aroma has citrus and tropical fruit notes backed by bready and slightly doughy aroma. It pours a hazy amber hue with a low amount of white head. The head has large bubbles and leaves a lacing down the glass. In the mouth there is a burst of citrus and tropical fruit hop flavours followed by bready and caramel malt notes. The bitterness to malt appears to be balanced initially, but once swallowed there is almost no lingering aftertaste at all. Medium to light body with medium carbonation. The finish is very clean and with the flavour disappearing soon after the swallow it invites you to take another mouthful very quickly.
Quite happy with this beer and I may do a rebrew of this recipe at some stage. Jo tasted it and it is the first beer that she has actually liked (because it does not have the bitter bite). Jo keeps calling it a girls beer, but I think that it is probably great for summer drinking! At the moment I have a variation of this recipe in the fermentor that has some first wort hopping and some 60 minute bittering additions as I think having some more hop bite in the finish would make for a better beer.
Beer brewing adventures with zymologist Zane 
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