IT'S very easy to get carried away with fads and trends about food and drink. The recent palaver over a certain energy drink developed by internet celebs was a prime [pardon his pun, readers] example of this.
Often, pretending to like something is a big part of going along with the trend: however, when there was a sudden buzz a few years ago about coconut water, I really found all the fuss – as well as the drink itself – hard to swallow.
Healthy or not, it just wasn't for me. I'm not particularly adverse to coconut. In fact, when it comes to beer, it can be a welcome addition to a stout. Often it's quite subtle, offering sweet and smooth characteristics to the beer – but in the case of the two stouts I tried this week from Vocation, the coconut is very much front and centre.
Vocation's signature stout is Naughty & Nice and they've souped up it with a verse which is billed as Coconut Macaroon Double-Dipped Chocolate Stout. Quite how that process shakes down is anyone's guess, but the result is a delicious stout with a moreish quality.
It pours a jet black colour with a thin and light tan head. You immediately get those whiffs of coconut and the sweet malt, so it's no surprise what the overriding flavour is once you take that first gulp.
Using a milk stout as its base, the coconut adds to the smoothness with the macaroon end of things bringing the sweetness. It has very much the feel of those toasted coconut sweets you'd get a quarter of from a jar on a sweet shop shelf.
After that initial burst of coconut, there are emerging chocolate notes, making this quite a decadent beer, all crammed into a 6 per cent strength stout.
The next coconut-based offering from Vocation is Maple Glaze. This is another unashamedly sumptuous stout which clocks in at 6.8 per cent.
The addition of maple gives it a sweet and woody feel with oats in the malt adding to the smoothness. But once again, the coconut is the star. It comes through in the aroma and is laced through the flavour.
There are more pronounced chocolate notes in this one, which gives it the feel of a Bounty bar – albeit one that has been dipped in maple syrup.
