Super Volcano
Diamond X Beer Co

Review: 2135
Name: Super Volcano
Brewery: Diamond X Beer Company
Location: Billings, MT
Style: Hazy IPA
ABV: 7.5%
Date: Maybe 05/2024
The scorching heat continues, my thirst quencher tonight is an IPA. I served the beer in a tulip glass at 44 degrees. The pour created a frothy and creamy two-fingered white head with fair retention. The quick dissipation left some lacing on the glass. I am charting the beer at SRM 6, a light amber with golden yellow hues. The beer's clarity is hazy, with a few yeast floaties and lively carbonation. The beer needs a better showing for a cloudy beer.
Nosing the glass, I smell papaya, pineapple, oranges, mangoes, and apricots with a malty sweetness. Nosing the glass again, I smell bready biscuits, lightly toasted malts, and caramel. I was searching for hop aromas other than the fruity notes. I wondered if there was an herbal or floral blossom, but I did not pick it up.
The beer is a fruit bomb with tropical notes of oranges, mangoes, lychees, pineapple, peaches, and a subtle lemon note. For the other hop flavors, I can taste grass, floral blossoms, and resin. The massive malt backbone in this beer crowds out some hop characters. The malt profile is bread, lightly toasted malts, caramel, biscuit, and malty sweetness. Other flavors in the beer are yeasty phenols and earthiness.
The mouthfeel has some astringency with a dry finish. The body is medium and has medium carbonation.
Are expectations met or exceeded? The Super Volcano beer presents a surprising twist. Anticipating a bright, vibrant IPA, I was met with muted hops and heavy, malty sweetness. Is it a hazy or a different IPA style? The beer challenges traditional categorizations. It is not quite cloudy enough for a hazy, yet it boasts the New England hazy character with a heavy dose of tropical. The unexpected elements of this brew kept me engaged and intrigued, especially on this hot summer night.

a big tropical hazy ipa, dosed with pink guava, pineapple, and mango. its interesting, but i dont love it, the fruit seems a little forced, the hops have some bite to them that suggests they are also a little overdone, and there is a curious almost tartness to the finish here that seems out of place. its orange juice in the glass, quite thick and hazy, with a full inch of white head and pretty lace, not unrefined looking, but fuller for sure. the nose is neat because i can actually pick out the pink guava separate from the other fruits, and because of how compatible the guava and the hops are, not sure what this is dry hopped with, but it could be cashmere or el dorado or something, as i get melon, tangerine, heady sativa, and even peach nectar, the nose is the best part of this beer. the flavor is muddied some by sweetness, by grain weight, and by the hops coming through green on the tongue, not bitter but still kind of harsh in that way, a shame because the fruitiness of the hops and the added fruit works well, more pineapple in the taste than guava or mango to me. the grain is starchy and soupy and i get some curious tang on the swallow, not the right texture for this, and carbonation is also light. neat idea, and the fruit together with these hops is a success to be sure, but this needs to be honed in, cleaned up, and perhaps lightened pretty significantly, has promise as a summer ipa of they can do it...