Hahaha, well im sure those who know me know that I will have a preference for Yakima Monster, but thats purely because I love the citrus and pine resinous aroma you get from US hops, I mean, Motueka is a great hop but IMO doesnt stand a chance against Amarillo and Simcoe ;o)
And the All Whites - who knows after their win against Serbia? But I really dont see them beating Italy, as nice as it would be haha
Oh I see what you did there, but now I really wanna know what its going to be hopped with?? Im guessing Sauvin and Riwaka?? Those two would probably be the closest to their US counterparts? Or am I way off?
You know what - you're probably right. Nelson Sauvin so so entirely unique and when applied to the brew in the right ways: it's unsurpassed. I admire that you have gone with few different varieties in the Motueka Monster and am really looking forward to having a side by side to appreciate the similarities / differences.
I tried to build it so that there would be as few differences as possible (besides the hop terroir). The thing that disappointed me in the first West Coast IPA challenge was that the beers were so different that you couldn't really gauge the difference in terroir. I'd been expecting the same beer with different hops. Thankfully I got over myself pretty quickly and just enjoyed each beer for what it was...
So both monsters have three varieties, both have the same proportions of very similarly AA%ed hops at the same time in the boil and almost exactly the same overall g/L and IBU. fingers crossed on the ferment now but when I last spoke to Steve he reckoned they were tasting damn good!