500ml bottle [Thanx David!]. Cloudy amber colour with huge, frothy, fairly lasting, minimally lacing, off-white head. Slightly cautious piney hop aroma, caramel malty basis. Taste is robust malty, minimal sweetness, a touch of biscuit, slightly bitter hoppy overtones, resin, pine, sweat, a touch of citrus; prickling carbonation, lasting malty finish with hints of husk, dust, scratching the edge to smoky. Nice composition with strengths on the malty side.

Bottle. Amber beer with a dark cream head. Grapefruit aroma. Citrus and dust flavor with earth, malt, and light vanilla. Medium bodied. OK bitterness. Malt and citrus linger with light earth and dust.

Half liter brown bottle pours murky copper brown with off white head. The aroma is mostly pine hops and then tart with citrus as well as a slight sweet maltiness in the background. The taste is similar and is front and forward with pine hops sliding into notes of tart grapefruit meat and some spicy hops around the edges. Below those notes is a thin river of near sugar sweet maltiness. This doesn’t pop with hops or richness that I’m used to in the style.

500mL bottle, split with Matts_Property, pours a murky reddish / orangey brown with a small white head. Aroma of tropical fruits, candied sugar, citrus hops and some yeast. Flavour of mango, peach, pineapple, citrus hops and mandarin oranges - a bit of grapefruit on the end. Dry, very fruity, with a citric finish. Well-balanced with no rough edges.

500ml bottle-shared by jtc-pours hazy amber with a rich thin light tan head. Aroma is dank/some herbal, 2nd medium malt. Taste is dank/some herbal-tea hops, 2nd light/medium malt-bready/caramel.

Bottle. Pours dirty caramel with tan brown head. Nose/taste of caramel, dirty resinous pine and tree bark, apricot pits and grapefruit rind. Full mouth feel. Sticky sweet caramel and grapefruit rind dominate the palate. Very pleasant drink.

Bottle shared by Dallas, thanks
Appearance: Clear amber with a medium sized white head and good lacing
Aroma: Citrus, herbal and caramel
Taste: Grapefruit, toasted malts, caramel and spices
Decent light IIPA

Bottle. I highly question that these should be separate entries. My bottle states a best before of September 21, 2011, but yet has the same description as the 2009 version.
Anyway, pours with a very murky to muddy amber brown hue with a small, off-white head that doesn’t last very long. Aromas are slightly musty, grainy, raw clover honey, wet dog, citrus, tropical fruit and hay. Some esters. Not very clean. Hops are not the showcase of the aroma (at least not in this, assumingly fresh sample). Flavors of fruit (tropical, passionfruit, mango, papaya), with a quick varnish flavor and some acid. Incredibly quick duration. Bitter finish, no malt body. I am kind of perplexed as to what is going on with this beer. It is not pleasant. A decent amount of ethanol, and a slight hint of funk (brett even). Possibly an infection. Lively bubbles. Odd finish. I have had several homebrewed IPAs with Rakau before. This is not normal.

From a 500ml bottle on 4/3/2011. Batch 40, best before 27/10/2011. The aroma is cirtus fruit (orange and passionfruit), candy, and burnt toffee malt. There’s more sweet burnt toffee in the flavour, along with some caramel and orange marmalade. There’s a decent dose of counterbalancing hop action, though it’s certainly not over the top by IPA standards, particularly one which is labelled an Imperial. This is a good, rather sweet IPA, though it’s not the your face experience I thought it might be.