Tag Archives: gose

Schell’s Goosetown

Posted on by

The folks down at Schell’s keep trotting out the new brews. I have to say, I was devastated to learn that Chimney Sweep, my new favorite, was not a year-round offering. Somehow I had got it in my head that it was. Maybe wishful thinking. In fact it’s a six-month beer that will alternate with Goosetown, a new Gose-ish summer beer.

Goosetown is part of a new trend in brewing to recreate extinct or nearly-extinct beer styles. One could say that the trend began in 1967 when Pierre Celis opened the Hoegaarden brewery to revive the Belgian witbier style that had sputzed out of existence ten years earlier. Today microbrewers are brewing modern interpretations of such long-lost beers as Gose, Mumme, Berliner Weisse, Grätzer, and Burton Ale.

Gose (pronounced GŌ-zuh) seems to fit into the family of “white beers” that once existed across Europe and Great Britain. It includes Hefeweizen, Berliner Weiss, and witbeir among other styles. Gose originated in the region near Leipzig, where water high in sodium lent the beer a saline profile. It’s a wheat based beer, often with coriander added. Lactic fermentation gives it a lemony tartness.

Goosetown isn’t exactly an authentic, traditionally brewed Gose. I don’t think the brewers at Schell’s would dispute that assertion. It is a tasty and refreshing summer ale, though. I actually tasted this long ago. I’ve been tied up in an all-consuming project in Chicago, however, and am just now getting around to posting my notes.

Here’s My notes:

Goosetown
August Schell Brewing Company, New Ulm, Minnesota
Style: Gose
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Wheaty. Bread and Saltines. Very light fruity notes – like a light lemony citrus. Aromatics are very subtle and mostly malt.

Appearance: The first sample was light golden and brilliantly clear, although later bottles have had a haze. Long-lasting fluffy white head. It really sticks around in a thick layer on surface.

Flavor: Bready wheat malt with smooth edges. Background salinity, but not enough to say it’s salty. It adds a mineral note and gives emphasizing contrast to the malt. Light sweetness. Bitterness is low and hop flavors are nearly non-existent. Only the lightest note of spice and something that reminds me of Indian lime-pickle. Maybe it’s the salt and noble hops bringing that to my mind. There is an afterthought of lemony acidity, but not nearly enough to say it’s sour. Maybe not even enough to notice outright unless you really pay attention. Like the coriander and orange in a witbier, it enhances without drawing attention to itself. Finishes with a parting shot of light bitterness and lingering bread and lemons.

Mouthfeel: Light body. Medium carbonation.

Overall Impression: Delicate yet flavorful. Exceptionally clean and balanced. Billed as a Gose. It’s Gose-ish, but I’d call it more of a slightly salty American wheat beer with a hint of acidity. But that’s okay. It’s a delightfully drinkable brew. It almost makes up for taking Chimney Sweep away for the summer. Almost, but not quite. I really want to try this with Indian lime pickle. The intensity of the pickle may overpower the beer, but something tells me it would be a good pairing.

A Sahti and a Gose from Sam Adams

Posted on by

Two soon-to-be-released beers in the Sam Adams Single Batch series reach back to lost or nearly-lost beer styles of the old country. Verloren – it means “lost” in German – is a gose (go’ zuh), a style that originated in Saxony, the area around Leipzig, Germany. The style had ceased to be brewed until a small brewpub in Leipzig called Bayerischer Bahnhof resurrected it. Gose is a wheat-based ale, typically brewed with coriander and a touch of salt. A bright, lactic acidity is usually present. It’s a tasty beer and the perfect accompaniment to nearly any thai food. Try gose with Thai beef salad. You will be amazed.

The second upcoming release is Norse Legend, based on a Finnish beer style called Sahti; a beer that in Finland is still brewed today much as it was 500 years ago. Anyone who has talked to me about homebrewing in the past couple of years knows that I am all about the Sahti. Once my friend Mark, a Brit who had been living in Finland, tossed down the gauntlet to make our own sahti I was hooked. We brewed three batches, trying to stay as close to tradition as possible given the realities of my homebrewing rig. We used loads of rye, filtered through juniper twigs, left the beer un-hopped , un-boiled, and un-carbonated, and we fermented it with bread yeast, once smuggling a cube of yeast back from Finland. We even hosted a special episode of Brewing TV to chronicle our process. Our results were mixed, and we never quite achieved the deliciousness of the commercial examples that Mark brought back from Finland, but the exploration was fun and I have gained a real fascination and love for this unusual style.

Sam Adams certainly got my attention with these two unusual beers, but did they pull them off?

Here’s my notes:

Norse Legend
Boston Beer Company, Boston, Massachusetts
Style: Sahti
Serving Style: 22 oz bottle

Aroma: Caramel, bread crust, raisins, and the herbal/spruce character of gin. There are hints of chocolate, but caramel is king. Some subtle fruity esters mingle with aromas of spice, like nutmeg or ginger.

Appearance: Deep mahogany and hazy. A splendiferous stand of creamy, ivory foam falls slowly and remains as a thick cap on the surface all the way to the bottom of the glass.

Flavor: Thick and creamy caramel floods the tastebuds right away. Interesting light fruit flavors like pineapple or sour apple come in long after swallowing and linger. Many flavors return from the aroma; the bread crust is there, raisins, and the piney gin flavor of juniper berries. The berries are there, but where are the twigs? Hint of roastiness and maybe a slight whiff of smoke make an appearance. Bitterness is low and I don’t detect any hop flavor. Noticeable alcohol reinforces the gin-like taste of juniper berries. Loads of fruit mid-palate; berries, orange, melon. Aaahhhh, there’s the twigs. They come in much later as the beer warms.

Mouthfeel: Thick and creamy, Medium-full body. Low carbonation. Warming alcohol.

Overall: This is closer to the commercial examples from Finland than any other American-made sahti I have tried. It’s a nice beer for sipping from a kuksa, a traditional Finnish wooden cup, on a winter’s night above the Arctic Circle – or from a tulip glass on a chilly spring evening in Minnesota. This so far is my favorite from the Single Batch series.

Verloren
Boston Beer Company, Boston, Massachusetts
Style: Gose
Serving Style: 22 oz bottle

Aroma: Coriander and wheat. Light citrusy fruits. There’s an almost savory, herbal quality that makes me think of oregano, but it’s not quite that.

Appearance: Deep golden color, almost amber. Cloudy. The small, off-white head leaves lace on the glass.

Flavor: Very wheaty. Next to wheat, coriander is the predominant flavor, but not overwhelming. It’s all kept in balance. A background saltiness gives a savory sensation and sticks to the back of the tongue on the way out. Some orange citrus notes counter the salt.

Mouthfeel: Light body. Medium carbonation.

Overall Impression: First let me say that I really enjoyed this beer. It’s a refreshing, summery beer that perfectly complemented the chicken bouillabaisse I made for dinner. Taken for what it is, it’s delightful. I don’t like to be a style Nazi, but there is a point at which you have to say “this isn’t what you say it is.” Based on other examples I have tasted and readings on the style, I expect some lactic tartness. That was totally lacking in this beer. The fermentation character seemed very neutral to me. It was like an American wheat beer with coriander and salt.

Autumn Brew Review Recap

Posted on by

Autumn Brew ReviewSaturday was Autumn Brew Review. At least half a million people turned out at parking lot of the historic Grain Belt Brewery in Minneapolis. Okay, so maybe there weren’t quite that many, but there were a bunch of people there. The sold out annual event was very well attended with beer lovers given the opportunity to taste the wares of 57 different breweries both local and national. Construction in the field approaching the river made the festival confines feel much more confined than last year and hot muggy weather made the compact crowds a bit hard to take by the end, at least for me. However, food lines never reached the epic lengths that they did last year, which was a definite improvement. I think the line at the Surly Brewing booth was the longest that I saw anywhere all day.

It was a good day for sour beers in my view and so-so day for pale ale and IPA. The first three of my top five beers were sour beers, with funky wild brews on offering from a number of brewers including Surly, Herkimer, Ommegang, Two Brothers, Victory, Great Waters, and others. As for the huge numbers of pale ales and IPAs on offer, nothing really stood out. With so many of these out there, brewers have to do something really special to rise above the crowd. In this category I found myself writing over and over again, “yet another hoppy IPA.” I think I’m just kind of over it.

Because of a tie for the top beer, my top five picks are really my top six picks. Starting at the bottom and working up, my number five beer was Summit German Style Kölsch. This is just a fantastic beer. Light and delicate, bready and subtly bitter, it provided me a blissful retreat at the end of the day when my palate had been smashed by the excesses of big, bitter, and barrel-aged. Remarkably its flavors still held their own. My number four was Odin Baltic Porter from Town Hall. This was a wonderfully rich and chocolaty porter with luscious caramel undertones and assertive herbal/grassy hop flavors and bitterness. Continuing up the list, my number three pick was Chestnut Hill from Lift Bridge Brewery. A big Nut Brown Ale, this beer had a creamy nutty and caramel malt profile nicely balanced by spicy/herbal hop bitterness and flavor. Rich but drinkable, Chestnut Hill would make a nice session beer even at 7% ABV. In the number two slot I put Thermo Refur from Furthermore Beer. This was an aged version of the beer they released last winter. The further aging has done it some good. This beer has developed a wonderful wild yeast funk; not sour, but redolent of earth, leather and barnyard. It is bone dry, but not lacking in body. I even think I tasted the beets.

My two top picks for this year were Rouge from Brewery Ommegang and Gose from the Herkimer Brewpub. Rouge is a Grand Cru style Flemish red ale that is a collaboration between Brewery Ommegang and Brouwerij Bockor in Belgium. It was spontaneously fermented and aged for 18 months in oak tuns. The result is a beautifully sour and barnyard beer with loads of cherry and berry flavors. While the acidity is strong, there remains a balancing malt sweetness that keeps it from being over the top. Beautiful. The real surprise of the festival for me was the Gose from Herkimer Brewpub. Gose is a rare North German ale style from the city of Leipzig, one of the few surviving representatives of the “white” beers that were once brewed all over northern Europe. A sour wheat beer flavored with coriander and sea salt, Gose is unique. Only one or two breweries in Leipzig still produce it and I know of only one that is available in the US. The Herkimer example was a nice one. Light and refreshing, tart but not overly sour, with a roundness of body and subtle saltiness from the addition of sea salt, I went back for this one three times during the day.

Other beers that seem worthy of mention but didn’t make my top five list include New Belgium Hoptober, Schell’s Roggenbier, Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ and Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Extra from Lagunitas (the only pale ales that managed to stand out from the crowd), Surly Brett, Avery Collaboration Tripel, and Vine Park English Premium Bitter. All in all it was a great event with a lot of great beers to sample. Can’t wait for Winterfest.