8

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Draught at Tip Tap Room, 6/22/17.
Brass-golden with light copper hues, thoroughly hazy bordering soupy and a small but fairly dense/firm, off-white head atop.
Surprisingly not as much difference in the nose from the Citra/Mosaic version as I’d expect based on significantly different hops. Granted, citra can mirror Galaxy in quite a few ways with their overlap of tropical notes. And to be fair, there is some white wine and stronger minerality here than in the other version, but I was expecting quite a bit more deep, lush spice, black pepper and/or passion fruit notes. Still, what’s there is enjoyable, just very dry and almost herbal, with light white grape and even a floral character lingering. Crackery malts, again, leave the hops to do their thing, although light honey-like maltiness does emerge with warming/breathing. No dull/doughy yeast, resin, flaw or alcohol.
Soft, malty texture is dotted with crackery, grainy notes that add a bit of complexity, shall we say. Moderately-low but very fine carbonation helps concentrate the wonderful hop bouquet which is heavily spicy and floral, with meyer lemon, light passion fruit and white wine on the finish. Lots of pineapple, kumquat and nectarine rind with sweeter key lime and red grapefruit emerging as it warms. A hint of sharpness/resin on the very end, probably more due to the high attenuation and strong dryness than anything but otherwise free of flaw and alcohol. Like the Citra/Mosaic version, a very lovely beer. This one is less explicitly juicy and takes some time to unlock the tightness that Galaxy often displays.