Breweries are popping up so quickly and bringing out new beers at such a pace that it’s becoming difficult to feature everything on the blog. I never wrote anything about Drifter Brewing Co opening (they launched somewhat under the radar with a great IPA at CTFoB 2015) and haven’t listed their tap room, so instead here’s a review of one of their beers.

Drifter, based in a funky spot in a fairly dodgy part of Woodstock, has three brews in the current core range – blonde ale, coconut ale and IPA.  – plus a red lager that began as a once-off brew but – as happens with many supposed one-off beers, it proved to be quite the hit and might make it into the flagship flight.

Unsurprisingly, the IPA is my fave of the four, but I can’t just review IPAs all the time so I’ve gone with the Stranded Coconut.

As with all of Drifter’s beers, there’s a slight haze – nothing untoward at all and certainly not off-putting. There’s no huge whiff of Malibu-like coconuttiness – just a subtle, background aroma letting you know what has been added to the boil. It’s a tremendously well-balanced beer – a touch of malt sweetness up-front that first gives way to a pleasant bitter finish and then gives you the hit of coconut you’re hoping for. Now there are only three foods in the world that I put on my “don’t like” list – intestines is one, tofu is another and the third is coconut. I’ve never had the pleasure/misfortune of being fed a beer infused with tofu or innards but I can tell you that coconut goes really well in a beer (I first had this epiphany when I tasted Afro-Caribbean’s Coconut IPA a couple of years back). With Drifter’s brew, you get all the flavour of desiccated coconut without the gross texture and the need to floss all the bits out of your teeth afterwards. Once you’ve sipped and gone back for a second or third sniff, you’ll find the coconut aroma comes through on this very drinkable, very moreish and very thirst-quenching-on-a-sweltering-summer’s-day beer.