West Coast DIPA · 8.5% ABV · Hops: Mosaic, Citra, Nectaron, Simcoe · Super Secret Sauce on Untappd
Reviewed: September 19, 2026 (inferred from the Apple Note’s creation date; no separate tasting date was written).
Okay fine… we’ll tell you some of the secret. Super Secret Sauce is cooked up with Mosaic, Citra, Nectaron, and Simcoe—a hop squad bringing explosive flavors of peach rings, candied oranges, and a touch of dank mischief. It pours loud and proud with a crisp West Coast bite, bold bitterness, and a clean, dry finish that keeps things dangerously crushable for a double. It’s bright, sticky, and mega hoppy—like someone spilled the recipe and decided to roll with it.
Still mysterious. Still saucy. Definitely not subtle.
The beer is straw golden, hazy, half-opaque, but more translucent than a hazy IPA. The foam is medium fine, medium sized, lacing. The beer smells malty, like simple syrup, beer wort, strawberry, tangerine, pine resin, candied lemon peel, pine needles, melon, Fuji apple wedge, cedar wood, ripe pear, orange cream popsicles. It smells like a classical West Coast IPA’s tangerine and citrus, plus wet-hop and wort’s sugary ripe stone-fruit noses. The beer is light to medium bodied, super soft, smooth, light to medium in sweetness, only subtly bitter. It feels foamy and pillowy in the mouth, showing strong ester, phenol and bubblegum aromas, like a yeast-driven West Coast IPA.
It shows simple syrup, medium caramel sauce, plum, Gala apple, pears, hazelnut syrup, vanilla, apricot jam, strawberry fruit strip, tangerine, diluted marmalade, pine resin, caramelized apple, clover honey aromas. The aftertaste is jammy, with tangerine fruit spread, pine needles, matcha tea, alcohol, tree leaves aroma. It’s very smooth, lower in body, soft and aromatic, like other successful Shred Beer Company offerings.
It’s quite crystal-candy-like. The caramel feeling probably is intentional to get the ester kick in, but not to make you feel the maltiness, so the beer feels like a Belgian strong ale that uses more candi sugar than caramelized malts, giving you a more crystallized feeling of sugar, clean, fruity, leaving less body (drier) in the beer. But I can’t call this beer dry; it’s just light to medium bodied, smooth and very airy. It doesn’t show you the dryness, nor the sticky malty body, but shows you a classier West Coast hops impression: evergreen, stone fruit, not too dank, but showing earthy herbs and grape-vine themes. It’s an elegant but strong beer, aromatic and smooth.
Untappd listed this beer at 4.15/5 from 616 ratings when checked on October 12, 2026 (UTC). That is a snapshot of Untappd user ratings, not my own score.
Beer review critics
Both critics notice the candy-and-evergreen tension, but ask whether “dry” and “bitter” can be judged from the same sensation—and whether the proposed sugar and yeast explanations go beyond the glass.
Gemini — Gemini 3.1 Pro (High), via Antigravity CLI
What tastes coherent. The reviewer’s memorable imagery of sliced Gala apple, fresh Fuji apple, and tangerine spread brings vivid clarity to the sensory profile. Pairing berry and candy sweetness with a pillowy body alongside resinous evergreen makes sensory sense for an 8.5% West Coast DIPA featuring Mosaic, Citra, Nectaron, and Simcoe, where saturated hop aromatics naturally cultivate an impression of rich orchard confection.
What doesn't follow. Tension arises over balance: the writer notes subtle bitterness and a finish that is not dry, while brewery descriptions claim bold bitterness and a dry finish. Perceived sweetness, perceived bitterness, and a mouth-drying finish can diverge across palates; without tasting, neither profile can be declared factual. Furthermore, attributing impressions to candi sugar, yeast esters, phenols, malt recipes, or wet-hop techniques represents speculative hypotheses rather than established facts. Tasting notes cannot measure attenuation, residual sugar, carbonation, hop oil linger, or physiological mechanisms, and public check-ins do not establish consensus.
A second glass. A practical blind tasting or temperature comparison, sampling chilled versus cellar temperature, evaluates the pour without claiming to identify sugar chemistry or citing arbitrary degrees. Observing how warmth shifts perceived sweetness against evergreen bite tests whether that pillowy sweetness persists.
— Gemini, Gemini 3.1 Pro (High reasoning), new critique of this review.
ChatGPT — OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol, via Codex CLI
The best read. The strongest thread is the tension between confectionery fruit—strawberry strip, apricot jam, candied citrus—and evergreen resin, leaves and grape-vine impressions. That gives the note character beyond a fruit inventory. The Fuji/Gala apple and stone-fruit comparisons can stay as personal associations. More useful still is the distinction between airy, pillowy texture and a lingering jammy, herbal, slightly alcoholic aftertaste: light body does not automatically mean a dry finish.
The questionable leap. The Belgian strong-ale analogy works as a sensory comparison; the proposed candi-sugar logic and intentional “ester kick” overreach. Neither those impressions nor bubblegum establish ingredients, yeast contribution or ester/phenol origins. Likewise, “classier” needs a sensory explanation. A few visible Untappd check-ins cannot establish flavor consensus; 4.15/5 from 616 ratings, listed October 12, 2026 UTC, is an aggregate score only.
How I'd calibrate. The brewery’s “bold bitterness, clean dry finish” is a useful counterpoint, not a verdict. Sweet-seeming fruit aromas and soft texture could make bitterness feel less prominent, while lingering fruit associations could complicate perceived dryness. Retaste a fresh serving without rereading the marketing, first cool and then warmer. Record bitterness immediately after swallowing and again after thirty seconds, separately from sweetness, mouth-coating and aromatic persistence. That would test whether “subtle” describes the whole finish or primarily the first impression.
— ChatGPT, OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol (high reasoning), new critique via Codex CLI; brewer description supplied as context.