Draught at the brewery, 1/5/19.
Heavily hazy, bronze-maize-golden. White head slowly fades to a ring.
Nose is quite suggestive of the El Dorado, which is to say, twangy papaya, aggressive citrus and light pine. Still don't get why this hop is so lauded. This beer is beautiful to me, except for the El Dorado which nearly ruins it. Just no finesse or softness to its character. Yeast is light and malts are primarily biscuit-cracker forward with light honey notes and are well-attenuated. No alcohol or flaw. Good juiciness and rounder citrus from the Citra, but I can't get past the El Dorado here.
In the mouth it's decliciously well-done. Tight carbonation, a soft, malty texture and strong attenuation without any heavy resin or messy yeast notes. Juicy citrus kicks things off with light lemon and pine breaking in as the El Dorado asserts itself and brings heavy papaya and punchy lime-like character tinged with pine and hard grapefruit rind. This is clean and free of alcohol with perfect maltiness (light honey, biscuit) and good bitterness. But again, I don't like the El Dorado. Still, can't deny the awesome quality here so I'll put my opinion of the hop mostly aside for the rating.