DDH DIPA · 8.5% ABV in my notes · “TRADING POST” · Swap Meets on Untappd
Reviewed: October 4, 2026 (inferred from the Apple Note’s creation date; no separate tasting date was written).
Double IPA with Nelson, Citra, Mosaic, and Galaxy hops.
My notes say 8.5% ABV; the current Untappd listing says 8.3%. I can’t verify whether these refer to different batches.
The beer is pale yellow, pale beige in color, opaque, very hazy. Foam is coarse, about a finger high, disappears quickly, showing a bit of lacing. The beer shows pineapple, mango, orange, lemon tart, lemon peel zest, vanilla orange creamsicle, white grape, pine cone, grape vines noses. The beer is light to medium sweet, subtly bitter, subtly salty, full bodied. If you drink it moderately slowly, there’s no hop burn. The beer shows marmalade, lemon peel, citrus oils, orange, tangerine, gooseberry, pine resin drops, grassy lands, hemp, weed oil, Jolly Rancher tangerine hard candy, lemon drop cough candy, grape vines, pungent citrus peel, white grape, tea leaves aromas. The aftertaste is white grapes, grapefruit peel, resin, cedar wood, soursop, wild arugula, lime zest aromas.
TBH, this beer gets me puzzled. I feel I mostly get Citra from this beer, but apparently there’s Galaxy’s white grape, soursop, gooseberry aromas; Mosaic brings some wild arugula, grape vine, and almost weedy aroma, and Nelson is supposed to be more dank, but maybe it leans to the white grapes. But you will also get all these fruits from Citra when it’s wet. So I don’t know. This is a little bit of everything. It’s sweeter than the Pokemonk I just had, showing a bit more salty-water flavor, more body.
I appreciate the sugar-free, sour-reduced soursop, which always gives me an ester-heavy exotic fruity experience. You can also say that might be a funky gooseberry aroma; they are similar because I don’t have these fruits in real life. They also give something like lotus-like floral, muscat-shine white grape, or funkier white grape peel aromas, which can later turn to a weedy ending, grape-vine-like, wild arugula when it’s spicy and funky. Aromas, smells are super vague, ever-changing. When I say these words you might laugh at me, because you may challenge: when is the last time you had any of these? But with so many years of tasting, sensing, writing down the experience, I start to laugh at myself when I’m influenced by the alcohol and trying to land on a moving target. Did I really sense any of these, or did I just calibrate this to a void from the internet and call this wet dream real? I don’t know. This is a good beer; I probably would say 4.2/5 using my imaginary Untappd scoring standard, but it was saying 4.4/5 on Untappd when I wrote this, so I’m puzzled: did I miss something, or maybe I don’t like the aggressive funky and weedy feeling of Galaxy, too much wild gooseberry? Nelson used to be more diesel-powered; this beer shows none, but the white grape is also where the Nelson Sauvin name comes from, so I can call that what I get from this sample of Nelson? But then if you know recent batches of Monkish Brewing Co. beer, they used wet Citra, which shows all these wild aromas borrowed from its cousins, and you can’t tell who is who without looking at the name tags. Mosaic feels like the mother of these vineyard dankness, white grape, dank herbs but fruity aromas. So I must say, maybe this is 50% from my mouth and nose, and 50% from the imaginary smoothness of my brain.
Untappd listed this beer at 4.37/5 from 6,093 ratings when checked on October 12, 2026 (UTC). That’s a current snapshot of Untappd user ratings, not my score or the historical 4.4/5 I recorded in my note.
Beer review critics
Two different responses to the same beer: both take the tasting seriously, while questioning whether hop names and public scores can settle what was in my glass.
Gemini — Gemini 3.1 Pro (High), via Antigravity CLI
The strongest taste insight. Your sensory breakdown captures a fascinating palate arc: in a sweet, full hazy DIPA, white-grape aromatics lead into bitter citrus peel before resolving into pungent hemp and wild arugula. Tracking how these sensations unfold sequentially over time gives real structure to the tasting. Furthermore, your 4.2 rating comfortably coexists with the contemporaneous 4.4 platform average. An aggregate score simply reflects collective drinkability, not an objective consensus or an authoritative benchmark you failed to meet.
Where I'd push back. I’d push back against attempting to neatly reverse-engineer the hop bill from the glass. Confidently assigning isolated flavors to Nelson, Citra, Mosaic, and Galaxy in a saturated blend is pure guesswork, as are unverified explanations about wet hops or esters. Crucially, don't conflate score with agreement. Community check-ins do not establish flavor consensus, so diverging by two-tenths doesn't mean your palate was mistaken or that you missed something.
One experiment. Order a single-hop Nelson or Citra pour alongside any standard house hazy DIPA. Comparing them side by side lets you isolate varietal characteristics in real time, rather than untangling a four-hop blend from memory.
— Gemini, selected excerpts from a new critique by Gemini 3.1 Pro (High reasoning).
ChatGPT — OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol (high reasoning)
What lands. Your strongest observation is the movement from citrus and creamsicle on the nose toward white grape, peel, resin, and herbs through the palate and finish. That progression tells me more than the fruit inventory alone. Fullness, sweetness, and slight salinity also give the beer a physical identity. Your doubt matters because unfamiliar fruit references and label knowledge can shape perception; it doesn’t invalidate what you smelled.
Where I'd push back. “I get white grape” is a sensory report; “Galaxy caused it” is a causal claim. The supplied listing names Nelson, Citra, Mosaic, and Galaxy, but doesn’t establish which produced each impression—or verify wet Citra. Likewise, “ester-heavy” describes your association, not demonstrated fermentation chemistry.
Separate resinous bitterness or peel-like astringency from actual dryness, and perceived salinity from any claim about salt content. A full palate can still finish dry, but your notes don’t clearly establish that distinction.
Your 4.2/5 is a valid personal judgment, not a failed attempt at the aggregate 4.37/5 across 6,093 ratings. Those ratings aren’t a calibrated panel; brief public check-ins establish no flavor consensus. The historical 4.4 is another snapshot, not evidence you missed something.
A better next tasting. Have someone conceal the hop list. Record aroma, sweetness, body, bitterness, salinity, and finish separately when cool, then repeat after warming. Only afterward reveal the hops. That tests which impressions persist without name-tag prompting—and whether warming changes citrus, grape, and resin differently.
— ChatGPT, OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol (high reasoning), independent critique supplied with the beer listing and limited public comments.