Craft Beer Review #5 - Wylam: Danse Des Coco
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| Wylam - Danse Des Coco |
The Brewery
Founded in 2000, Wylam began brewing in a potting shed in Heddon-on-the-wall[1], on a farm in the town of Wylam. However, when owners Dave Stone and Rob Cameron bought into the company in 2010, they decided to move to a larger premises to allow the company to grow. The location decided upon was a twenty minute drive away to the The Palace of Arts[2], in Exhibition Park, Newcastle.I first saw Wylam due to their collaborative beers with breweries such as Northern Monk, Lervig, Deya and Yeastie Boys, but after trying just one of them, I started buying their non-collaborative beers whenever I saw them. Wylam seem to like making IPAs[3], I notice this because out of the nine beers I've tried from them, seven are IPAs, and the other two are pale ales. Reading through their beer list though, they also make a couple of stouts, and don't shy away from using interesting fruits and adjuncts in their recipes. However, they are also well known for their cask beers[4], though I'll never get the opportunity to try these in central Germany.
My experiences with Wylam brews have been very good. My minimum score so far has been a 4.0/5, with my maximum being a 4.75/5 for their Imperial IPA, "Currency For the People"[5]. Impressively, for a brewery with 180 beers, they have an average score of 3.9/5.0. For a comparison, Northern Monk have an average of 3.87/5, and Anheuser-Busch, the summoners of Bud Light, have an average of 2.56.
First Impressions
The "Danse des Coco" or the"Dance of the Coconut" might be a traditional dance from the northeastern region of Brazil, which may have been popular in groups of coconut gatherers[6]. However, there is no mention from Wylam on how they chose this name.
The can itself is quite attractive. Soft, muted orange and greens highlight whites circles in a 1960's, Brady Bunch curtain print sort of way. I think Wylam always make very attractive labels, and there's no doubt in my mind that I was drawn to trying their beers because of their marketing.
The pour produces a deep gold beer with a light haze[7], with a head that quickly excused itself, and left without even a goodbye. The nose however was both a surprise, and not a surprise. That is, I was expecting coconut on the nose, but not that much coconut. There's a citrus fruit note that arrives with the coconut, and it can be hard to untangle the two odours[8]. There's also a hint of grainy biscuit that sneaks in, and it kind of reminds me of a cake I once had that was orange and coconut flavoured[9]. Finally, there seems to be pineapple, but I'm not sure if the "tropical-ness" of everything is making me imagine it.
The can itself is quite attractive. Soft, muted orange and greens highlight whites circles in a 1960's, Brady Bunch curtain print sort of way. I think Wylam always make very attractive labels, and there's no doubt in my mind that I was drawn to trying their beers because of their marketing.
The pour produces a deep gold beer with a light haze[7], with a head that quickly excused itself, and left without even a goodbye. The nose however was both a surprise, and not a surprise. That is, I was expecting coconut on the nose, but not that much coconut. There's a citrus fruit note that arrives with the coconut, and it can be hard to untangle the two odours[8]. There's also a hint of grainy biscuit that sneaks in, and it kind of reminds me of a cake I once had that was orange and coconut flavoured[9]. Finally, there seems to be pineapple, but I'm not sure if the "tropical-ness" of everything is making me imagine it.
The Tasting
There is sweet coconut, pineapple juice and mandarin right up front. These fruit juice flavours give way to some bitterness on the finish, before transitioning to coconut milk as you breath through your nose.
There's a lot going on here, and it's more complex than I expected. I'm not a big fan of coconut, not that I dislike it mind you, and it's definitely the dominant flavour[11]. However, if I imagine this beer without the coconut, it would be a sweet, pineapple-driven IPA, and I think the coconut does a lot to soften the sweetness that would otherwise make this beer too rich. I also suspect that too much bitterness would not go well with the coconut, so I'm happy with the balance. Overall, I'm not going to start advocating for coconut in every beer, but it works here.
Okay. There aren't any real "official" tasting notes, but Wylam's description of the beer reads "A tropical drupe IPA with lashings of Sabro, Bru 1 and Citra. Big juicy emissions of pineapple and mango mashed up with raw white creamy coconut meat"[12]. So, I didn't really notice any mango, and for some reason I'm extremely uncomfortable with the statement "raw white creamy coconut meat". I don't know why.
Final Thoughts
I think beers can fall into two rough categories of beers: trick beers and normal beers. Trick beers are beers that taste like something else while also being a beer, and a good trick beer tastes just like that thing. Take for example, Big Shed Brewing's "Golden Stout Time" which tastes like a popular ice cream from my childhood, Saranac Brewery's "S'more Porter" which tastes like a freshly toasted s'more, or Duclaw Brewing Company's "Sweet Baby Jesus!" which tastes like the flesh of a recently born messiah. Normal beers though don't taste like anything unusual, except for their particular style of beer.
Wylam's Danse Des Coco sort of sits between these two categories of beer. On one hand, it tastes a bit like a piña colada, with pineapple and coconut, but not quite enough to be a trick beer, and nor do they claim it to be one! On the other hand it tastes like a particularly well-made sweet, tropical driven IPA, but it comes with this unexpected hit of coconut, so it's not exactly a traditional style of beer. So, who does this beer suit then?
Well, I'd personally recommend this beer to anyone that likes coconut, and conversely, definitely not to anyone that hates coconut. That's obvious. But, I also wouldn't recommend this beer to an IPA purist, as it does depart from the standard formula, and it is pretty sweet. However, I would recommend this beer to literally anyone else. It is beautifully crafted, it is smooth, and it is complex. Just don't be shocked by the coconut, and expect sweetness!
| Brewery | Wylam |
|---|---|
| Beer | Danse Des Coco |
| Style | International IPA |
| Alcohol | 6.9% |
| IBU | No IBU |
| Price | 6.00€ |
| Untappd Global Score | 3.81 |
| My Untappd Score | 4.25 |
Footnotes
[2] This place is actually really cool. It originally hosted the North East Coast Exhibition in 1929 to show off industrial success in the region. 4.3 million people attended, and every millionth visitor won a gold watch! After the Exhibition, a science museum was housed here and it housed the Turbinia for a time too. The Turbinia was a steam-turbine powered ship built in 1894 which was easily the fasted ship in the world at the time.
[3] Which is great news because I love drinking IPAs. We must make such a great team.
[4] What is cask ale? Quite simply, it's unfiltered, unpasteurised cask-conditioned ale, made from traditional ingredients, and served without the addition of carbon dioxide or nitrogen. It's also called "real ale", due to the more historical nature way in which they are stored and served. Arguably, clay pots as storage vessels came first though, which might make the beers stored and served in these "über-real ale" then? In any case, real ales are definitely a unique style of beer that everyone should try.
[5] Sometimes my tasting notes aren't so great if I've had a couple of beers. In this case, for a near-perfect beer, I wrote "Holy shit. That's amazing. A perfect hazy DIPA.". I just wrote what I probably blurted out.
[6] Don't quote me on any of this. There is very little information on this topic, but I thought I'd mention what I'd found.
[7] It's hard to describe the "look" of a beer after mentioning the colour, and the head. What else can I say? "It appears to be a liquid, and there is no evidence for any departure from the laws of physics. It is definitely not a cat."
[8] Apparently it's hard, as some people claim they could smell "all of the coconut", whereas others claimed "not enough coconut". I lean more towards the "lots of coconut" end of the spectrum.
[9] I didn't like this cake, but in my defence, it's hard to get drunk on cakes[10].
[10] Hard, but not impossible.
[11] When reading others reviews of this beer, I'm a little perplexed at the statements like "I wasn't expecting the coconut". It has coconuts on the label, and the name was also a bit of a giveaway. Are these people also shocked to discover chocolate flavours in chocolate milk?
[12] What's a drupe? Apparently, it's "a fleshy fruit with a thick skin and a central stone containing the fruit, e.g. a plum, cherry, almond, or olive", or "a small marine mollusc with a thick knobbly shell, found mainly in the Indo-Pacific". I can confirm that this beer has zero olive or knobbly mollusc flavours.
[13] Fun fact: Mexico didn't pay for this wall either.
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