Sunday 15 July 2012


Beer Review
Summer Wine Brewery - Diablo 6.0%


Diablo. The Devil. Summer Wine's flaship IPA, described at being loaded with US hops and dominated by Citra, seemingly hop-du-jour amongst many brewers and breweries currently.
Citra hops from the USA were launched at World Brewing Congress in 2008, and were bred as a hybrid of several varieties : Hallertauer Mittelfruh, US Tettnanger, East Kent, Golding, Bavarian, Brewers Gold and possibly some unknown others. Used for both aroma and flavour, it is a popular in single hop brews.
Time to see how it works with the other hops in Diablo.
It pours a pale orange with a clean white head. There's a big lychee and grapefruit aroma with guava and mango in there too, it's a real tropical fruit cocktail on the nose, zesty, zingy and absolutely mouth-watering. Coarse, dry and biting over the tongue, big peach, lychee, mango and passion fruit explodes in the mouth before a big blanket of whole grapefruit, pith, peel and flesh smothers it all with a sharp citrus bitterness. The best bit of it all is the freshness, all the flavours are vibrant and rich, this is IPA in technicolour, and I'm guessing it was brewed quite recently. The finish is more of that sharp, sharp grapefruit fading gently but definitely, inviting you to taste and experience it's magnificence once more.
I was expecting a hoppy IPA, but having had many many hoppy IPAs I was expecting a good beer but not exceptional. I was so wrong. This is a beautiful tropical fruit bomb of a beer and incredibly fresh tasting, it's almost juicy. I'm going back for more.

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