Name: Coconut Cluster
Brand: Wooden Hill Brewing Company
Availability: InStock

A coconut cluster is a confection: toasted coconut and nuts bound together in chocolate. Wooden Hill Brewing Company has assembled the same three parts out of a porter.

Coconut Cluster is a 6.2 percent porter made with toasted coconut and hazelnut, back on tap and in cans to go at the Edina brewery. Porter supplies the third element on its own, since roasted malt reads as cocoa without any cacao going in. That leaves the beer's name doing double duty as a recipe.

Wooden Hill credits the beer to Jeremy, its brewer and cellarman. That is a small thing, but a notable one from a brewery whose newsletters are otherwise signed off by the two brothers who own and run it. It returns as a limited run rather than a permanent addition to the tap list.

Coconut Cluster is pouring now at Wooden Hill's Bush Lake Road taproom, with cans available to take home while it lasts.

Editor’s Take

Most beer names are a mood. This one is a parts list. Toasted coconut, hazelnut, and a porter to hold the pair of them together in the dark - that is a coconut cluster, the actual confection, reverse engineered into a glass and then handed back its own name. After years of reading beers called things like Ephemeral Dusk, a beer that simply tells you what is in it feels almost confrontational.

It is also a smart cluster to have picked. Coconut turns up in a lot of dark beer and tends to arrive sweet and a bit suntan lotion about it; toasting it first pushes it toward the biscuit end of the range, which is where hazelnut is already standing. Between those two and a porter's roast you have covered nut, coconut and cocoa without adding another thing. Limited run, apparently, which is the correct treatment for a beer that is essentially a snack.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Coconut Cluster Names the Candy, Then Brews It as a Porter

A coconut cluster is toasted coconut and nuts bound in chocolate. Wooden Hill's returning 6.2 percent porter assembles the same three parts and lets the roasted malt handle the chocolate end.

Source & Editorial