Just pulled the first beer from my Waimea keg. Yes i know it's 2 in the morning, and i've just opened the keg...
Righto, firstly i reckon the basic Craftbrewer descriptor of Fruity Citrus and Pine is right on the money.
I've never tasted a hop like this. It's quite florally sweet flavourwise.
My recipe is on either page two or three, it's the one where i decided to go with a dry hop as i had zero aroma at end of ferment.
Still pretty much zero aroma. The bittering doesn't stand out at all, so i reckon this hop shines as a flavour addition. This particular beer is beautifully balanced on the bittering side of things though. I don't actually notice it, but it's not dominated by the malt either.
I'm calling 30min or less with a chiller, or for those dirty no chillers (like me) this hop would probably work well as a really late addition or even a 100% cube hop smash.
10min Waimea SMASH anyone? Would go awesome i reckon.
I use lots of Nelson Sauvin and Motueka...It's much closer to Motueka to my palate. Both can have the florally element going on, but NS is way bigger on aroma (as is Citra - unmistakable), whereas this Waimea has that earthy quality to it that NS doesn't have, kind of similar to Motueka, but initially the Waimea is "sweeter"....can't quite put my finger on it. Very weak on the aroma front.
Bottom line is this....if you've brewed with Motueka a fair bit, you'll love this hop as a variant, but i'd recommend to go a bit harder than you normally would as it doesn't come through as much as the AA% would have you believe.
Next time i'm gonna add 25% right across all additions and see how that goes.
Go hard with this hop chaps, she doesn't bite!
