Draught, pouring a sparkling clear golden amber with a white bubbly head. The aroma is very pleasing, juicy malts dominate with a strong fruity hop kick. A strong tropical fruit hop palate with plenty of bitterness and dryness. Reminiscent to me of the old Limburg Hopsmacker - very tasty. So much better than the rest of the Macs range it is difficult to believe it is from the same brewery.

I’ve tried this the last couple of years and thought it was very good. Never got around to rating it, as much as I enjoyed it. The 2008 vintage is excellent. I sip a glass of water and watch the world go by, as the two "pints" in front of me warm up and await the arrival of BozoNZ. Rich amber in the gloomy autumnal evening light, a little shy of brilliant, and topped off with a retreating off-white snow melt head. Sweet sticky malt greets the nose all the way from the table, with a rich and ripe fruity hop note comnig through as I lift the glass. Great malt/hop balance in the mouth. The hops are earthy, slightly sappy/piny and iron-like, with those classic kiwi tropical fruit notes coming through too. The malt is at the rich-end of being "typically Mac’s" - bready, with hints of vanilla. Taste bud stripping bitterness sneaks up on you and demands hot salty chips. We oblige and my palate is muted. For all of this it is a pretty clean beer, and superbly drinkable. Three pints and I’m on my bike. I’ll be back. Cheers Mac’s! I call her "Brewjolina", she should be a celebrity couple.

2008 vintage, finally a decent beer from the ’new’ Mac’s! great passionfruit oily hop aroma, solid palate and a refreshing balanced hoppy malty flavour, i was so impressed i had two, this has not happened since the buy out!

Pint - Clear amber colour, nice malt balance but sadly missing the ’green hops’ as promised. Clean and interesting but short of the much promised hop character 5-4-5-3-12-2.9 Rerated 2008 version. More grunt, way better than last year. Bready/ yeasty notes with a fruity dolop. Nice balance and decent character. Could easily do a few of these.