Next up on the Hop-epedia Project: El Dorado hops. El Dorado are pretty new and limited. I read that the entire 2011 crop was grown on about 3.5 acres. Perhaps the 2012 yield will be a little bigger, but they’ll probably still be a little hard to come by. I had some recently in Flying Dog’s El Dorado single hop, and I had to sing their praises.
El Dorado is a dual purpose hop. It has a high alpha acid content (around the range of Super Galena or CTZ), which means they can impart plenty of bitterness. As for aroma and flavor, El Dorado hops are big and juicy. I picked up significant orange citrus, tropical fruits, a little resin, and an almost hop candy character. Others have noted pear, watermelon candy (jolly ranchers), stone fruits, and even fresh cut grass (all of which I can understand, except for the lawn clippings). As for the bitterness, in the case of Flying Dog, it head fakes you into bracing for a bitter blast, then it finishes with a nice, mellow bitterness, despite being high in cohumulone.
I haven’t been able to hunt down the lineage, but as far as I can tell, El Dorado is the only hop with a twitter and facebook account. This is a fascinating development. If it plays out, it could get interesting. Who wouldn’t want to see hop vaguebooking, bitching, and updates on mundane hop activities?
Some El Dorado beers:
Flying Dog El Dorado Single Hop – I got a growler of this from Whole Paycheck. It’s good.
New Belgium The Trip X (’72 Eldorado Fresh Hop IPA)
Firestone Walker Helldorado – An Imperial Blonde or Blonde Barleywine. Firestone claims the El Dorado hops are pretty far in the background.
Toppling Goliath El Dorado IPA
Blue Monkey El Dorado – Blond Ale from Nottingham England. Apparently, in 2010, only 400 pounds of El Dorado hops were sent out of the US. Good hustle, Blue Monkey!
Portsmouth Brewery Cruising Down Crenshaw in my El Dorado - A brewery-only Dirty Blond cask beer. Clearly the best name, though.
Stats from CLS Farms (the developer of El Dorado)
Yield (kilos per hectare) 2,650 – 2,880
Yield (lbs per acre) 2,300 – 2,500
Alpha Acids 14 – 16%
Beta Acids 7.0 – 8%
Cohumulone (% of alpha acids) 28 – 33%
Total Oils (Mls. per 100 grams dried hops) 2.5 – 2.8
Myrcene (as % of total oils) 55 – 60%
Caryophyllene (as % of total oils) 6.0 – 8%
Humulene (as % of total oils) 10 – 15%
Farnesene (as % of total oils) 0.1%
Storage: Good
Possible Substitutions: ??
As always, comments are welcome!
Love the Hop-epedia posts as always. And great that you highlighted this new kid on the block. I haven’t had any beers with it yet, but now I’ll be keeping an eye out for them. And damn if that isn’t one social media entrenched hop. Has its own website and everything.
Thanks! And I didn’t check to see if the hops do pinterest or instagram. I imagine that is next.
Just a quick comment. I notice lots of folks using the term “hop candy” in descriptions of beers . . . smelled of hop candy. . . hints of hop candy . . . etc.. Have you ever tried REAL hop candy? There’s not many out there but I’ve been selling mine for about 2 years now and I don’t advertise or have a website. This means I have to do a lot of searches for “hop candy” to see if anyone is talking about it and end up getting lots of ‘bum hits’ from these descriptions. Just wonderin’?
I haven’t. I follow a guy on twitter (Hop Candy, Inc.) who makes hopolates (hop chocolates), which I have thought about trying. What types of hop candy do you peddle? Hard candy? What kinds of hops? And maybe they’re not bum hits, rather potential customers.
Yeah, that’s Phillip. I ended up throwing him a bone out of this article; http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/germantown-more-news/item/39308-beer-fans-celebrate-week-long-at-philly-beer-week- . Never met him or tasted his hopolate but we’re all in this together so I guess it’s all good! Remember to ‘B-Hoppy’!!
Where are these 3.5 acres? Cali?
It would appear, according to their website: Moxee Valley, Washington. Road trip?
Your on. I say we fill up some camel backpacks with brew for energy on the drive though.