Imbibe Gose

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66 imbibemagazine.com ~ may/june 2011

SotheStoryGose

SEVEAL SEPEMBES AG, Eric Roseand Jonathan Cutler were prowling the

suds-dappled oor of Denvers Great American Beer Festival. Amid the pineyIPAs and espresso-black imperial stouts,Rose, the owner and head brewer of Gole-ta, Californias Hollister Brewing Compa-ny, stumbled upon the pale-yellow GoseSpeziell Weizen, hailing from Minneapo-lis Herkimer Pub & Brewery.

A salty, sour Grman br ismaking a dec ceAc.

STORY BY

Joshua M. Bernstein

PHOTOS BY

Stuart Mullenberg


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A freshly brewed gose out ofthe tap at Cascade Brewing.


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Cascade Brewing's springtime goseis seasoned with salt, coriander, driedlemon peel, chamomile and lavender.



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69may/june 2011 ~ imbibemagazine.com

At rst blush, little distinguished Herkimers elixir fromsimilarly hued brews. Yet a single sip revealed a unique tart-ness. What was that appetizing, tongue-enveloping avor?Salt? Yes, thats the signature ingredient of sour gose (pro-nounced gose-uh), an ancient German wheat beer seasoned

with coriander. ough Rose liked Herkimers gose, he thoughtit could be even more sour. He and Cutler, the head brewer at

Chicagos Piece Brewery & Pizzeria and a German-beer spe-cialist, bounced ideas back and forth, settling on a traditionallactic fermentationa tricky technique, given bacterias un-

predictability. Everybody said good luck with that, laughsRose, 35, who received guidance from a local microbiologist.

He brewed his gose with a few stfuls of coriander, lessthan a pound of salt (a teensy amount for 10 barrels of beer)and a smattering of aged hops for balance, then pitched insouring Lactobacillus bacteria and, later, hefeweizen yeast.Upon sampling, it was sour from start to nishthe acid wasthe show, Rose says of his distinctly lemony brew. Since hedoubted customers would drink it straight, he oered his cre-ationdubbed Tiny Bubblesalongside cherry and raspberrysyrups. But Tiny Bubbles required no sweet touch. e salt

brought everything together, Rose says of his beer, which wonover drinkers at his brewpub and judges at the 2010 GABF,where it nabbed a silver medal. Its like salt on a steak, Rosesays. It leaves a really interesting avor that brings you backover and over again.

In recent years, the sour brews classically found in Belgiumhave bewitched American brewers, who employ wild yeastsand bacteria to create the tart ales. Now brewers are taking ashine to Germanys sour-beer tradition. First the acidic, low-al-cohol Berliner weisse was all the rage. Now salty, lip-puckeringgose is making the leap from history books to the bar.

Youll nd this quirky qua at Indianapoliss Brugge Bras-serie, which makes Bad Kitty, and the Draught House Pub &Brewery in Austin, Texas, which serves Sunshade Gose as asummer seasonal (sunshadeSonnenschirmis goses Ger-

man nickname). New Hampshires Portsmouth Brewery of-fers a gose trio, including a winter-warming imperial version,

while Portland, Oregons Cascade Brewing creates a uniquegose for each season. Fellow Portlandite Upright Brewing in-stead releases its gose as an early spring seasonal. Its dier-ent, exciting and can still be aggressive, says owner and headbrewer Alex Ganum, 31. Gose has an edge to it that appealsto people.

alty for cnturisPutting salt in beer may seem sacrilegious, but for centuriesthe seasoning has been key to this strange, singular Germanbeverage. Like the Berliner weisse, gose is one of northern Ger-manys traditional top-fermenting wheat beers. While both are

sour, gose diverges by incorporating salt and coriander, a spicetypically found in the Belgian witbier. ough some historiansspeculate that gose is related to Belgiums gueuzea blendof aged lambicsGose originated in Goslar, a mining townin northwestern Germany and takes its name from the riverGose, which courses through the city.

Sharp, twangy gose proved popular and by the 1700s hadcaught on in Leipzig, located about 100 miles east, where it be-came a local favorite. Leipzig brewers also began manufactur-ing gose, and as recently as 1900 there were reportedly morethan 80 licensed gosenschenkethat is, gose tavernwhere

one could get a glass of the salty stu, which was sometimes

served with a cumin-avored liqueur. You see that with manyof the old north-Germany beer styles, explains beer historianRonald Pattinson, 54, the author ofPorter! and Brown Beer.ey drank them with spirits because the beers werent veryalcoholic.

Despite currying local favor, gose was never the majorityof beer drank in Leipzig, Pattinson continues. e amountof gose produced was quite limited, likely because few peoplehad mastered its tricky production. From its late-19th-century

peak gose gradually declined, as a lager craze swept Germany,wiping out small-scale breweries specializing in top-ferment-ing beer. Gose survived until World War II dealt it a deadlyblow. Across Germany during that era, beer production tem-

porarily ceased. When smoke and rubble were cleared, Leipzig

found itself in Communist German Democratic Republic. In1945, the last remaining gose brewery was conscated andclosed. Leipzigs Friedrich Wurzler Brauerei revived gose in1949, but when the owner died in 1966, so did gose.

e style lay dormant till the 1980s, when bar owner LotharGoldhahn decided to restore Leipzigs Ohne Bedenken, onceone of the citys most famous gosenschenke. To ll taps, hecontracted breweries to craft gose. It had been 20 years since

people had gose, so he had people who drank gose try it, Pat-tinson says. It passed muster. After a rocky period where pro-duction ceased again, there are more breweries making gosein Germany than any time since World War II, Pattinson says.Its a remarkable comeback. He counts at least four gose-pro-ducing German breweries, including Brauhaus Hartmanns-dorf, makers of the laser-tart Goedecke Dllnitzer Ritterguts

Gose, and Gasthaus & Gosebrauerei Bayrischer Bahnhof, lo-cated in Leipzigs historic train station.

Its refreshing and highly complex, says Matthias Neidhart,54, the president of B. United International importers, of Ban-hof s Leipziger Gose, which may soon be complemented byan amber mrzen and a strong bock version. You have thebanana-y esters from the yeast and lactic character from thebacteria and a dry, salty nish thats not overpowering. WhenB. United began importing the gose around 2003, drinkers metthe beer with a blank stare. But thanks to the surging inter-est in sour, when you tell people about the lactic acid, saltand coriander, their curiosity level goes up tremendously, saysNeidhart. Its almost like a session beer in that you can easilyhave a second or third. Its so refreshing.

Wv Got tylsCreativity is a hallmark of American craft brewing. Untetheredfrom tradition, brewers use time-honored beer styles as aspringboard to innovation. Naturally, gose is getting the o-beat treatment, but necessity is the mother of brewers tastyinventions. Regarding gose, there arent any brewing recordsbefore the 1800s, Pattinson says, noting that World War II de-stroyed numerous documents. Even going back 200 years isdicult. is creates a quandary when crafting a beer borncenturies earlier.


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Whenever youre playing around with an ancient style, you have no idea what the avor should exactly be, so weremaking a guess, says Tod Mott, 53, the head brewer at Ports-mouth Brewery. Last year, he got bit by the gose bug after beingapproached by assistant brewer Tyler Jones. He was smitten

with making a salty brew because his grandfather would putsalt in any beer, Mott says, laughing.

Originally, gose was soured via spontaneous fermentation,due to bacteria like Lactobacillus. (Later, lactic acid was like-ly added instead.) Since Mott never messes with wild yeastsand bacteria, he opted for a sour mash method. After mixingthe grain with water and boiling it to create wortthe sugarybroth that becomes beerMott topped the mixture with raw

wheat, sealed the brewing vessel and pumped in CO2

to form ananaerobic environment. e grains natural bacteria munchedthe sugars and created acidity. After boiling the sour blend toarrest the critters appetite, Mott added hefeweizen yeast tocontribute avors of bananas and cloves. e easy-drinking re-sult was just beautiful, Mott says of the gose, which ew outof the pub like crazy. Customers loved it, as well as his ensuingdark dunkel gose and imperial-strength gose.

Instead of sour mashing, Uprights Ganum takes a dierenttack to gose, which he was rst introduced to at a homebrewcompetition. My friend was like, Yougotta try this, Ganum recalls of thegose, which was, interestingly, soured

with lemon juice. e salt changesthe nish and makes it more appetiz-ing. It makes you want to drink moreof it. Intrigued by the styles avorand low alcohol contentgose is tra-ditionally less than 5 percent ABVGanum brewed his own version in fall2009. He used a French saison yeast,then fermented it at cooler tempera-tures to impart a hefeweizen-like

character. Cautious about overdoingit with the lactic acid and salt, he ini-tially used too little of each. He addedmore salt and lactic acid, then morestill. e result was bright and acidic,oering notes of lemon and earth

paired with a drying, quenching close.ats probably the seasonal beerthats had the most requests. I alwaysget, When are you going to brew thegose again? Ganum says of the earlyspring specialty.

Spring is just one inspiration forRon Gansberg, 54, head brewer at Port-

land, Oregons Cascade Brewing. Gansberg is renowned for craft-ing complex, painstakingly blended tart brews, so it follows that

when he began dabbling in gose, he went all out. Using the tradi-tional lactic-fermentation technique (the same one employed byHollisters Rose), Gansberg crafts a distinct gose for each season.One of the beauties of the style is that its open to interpretation,Gansberg says of his beers, sometimes released simultaneouslyas the four goses of the apocalypse.

For autumn, Gansberg adds orange peel, nutmeg and cin-namon instead of the traditional coriander. e stronger holi-day version is spiced with cranberry, hibiscus ower and or-

ange peel, while springs release is avored with chamomile,lemon peel and lavender. e golden summer gose is the mosttraditional take, and its Gansbergs preferred drink when tem-

peratures soar. When its hot outside, you can get a glass ofgose down in a few guzzles, and then its back to work, he says.at little bit of salt creates an electrolytic response. Its re-freshing and rejuvenating.

Besides its quenching character, Gansberg sees anotherbenet to oering gose. Compared to his other sour brews,gose is much more accessible because its acid level is muchlower. We like to start people o with gose and transition themto the harder stu, Gansberg says, laughing. Gose is a gate-

way sour beer.

f a crtain AgAmerican brewers may be oering quirky spins on this classicGerman qua, but in certain regards theyre following tradi-tion. According to Pattinson, old-guard gose brewers deliv-ered barrels of still-fermenting suds to gosenschenke whilethe beer was still frenetically active. e barrels were cellaredtill fermentation slowed, whereupon proprietors transferred

the gose into long-necked bottles, plugged them with yeastand let the beer condition for at least one week, and no morethan three. Customers would prefera certain age of gose, says Pattinson,

who warns of the hazards of this n-icky method. If there was exception-ally hot weather, a pub could have anentire cellar of gose go bad. e trick

was serving gose at the right degreeof maturity.

Cascades Gansberg also likes toexperiment with aging. When gosesage, they stay really crisp. You mightget some honey malt avors com-ing through, he says. Acids are likehops: Initially theyre like a ragingmountain, very sharp and angular.Over time, goses tend to erode andsoften. In fact, he recently sampled agose hed brewed in 2009 and found itto be excellent.

Hollisters Rose is also a fan ofmaturation. It gives it a round, fullavor, he says, adding that a cellared

version of Tiny Bubbles tasted likea carbonated lemonade. Still, forRose, nothing beats the aggressivelytart, full-on pucker of fresh TinyBubbles. In fact, hes so eager to see

other brewers serve lactic-sour gose that hes given his recipeto a half dozen breweries, including Utahs Squatters Pubs andBeers and Southern Californias Alpine Beer.

Im happy to share it with anyone, he says, oering anoth-er advantage to brewing gose. Its an easy way for a brewery toget into the sour-beer game, which is a time- and labor-inten-sive process. You can do a sour beer in three or four weeks.

With more breweries crafting gose, Cascades Gansberg seesthe revived styles potential as a table beer, something to sipalongside food. For the rst time in more than a century,drinking gose could be an everyday event, Gansberg says.

Ge A G-GWhile gose fever is hitting craftbrewers coast to coast, it remainsa regional brew thats usually avail-able only on draught at the brewer-ies where its made. But that mightsoon change. Portland, OregonsCascade Brewing hopes to startbottling its gose for national distri-

bution this year, and others may beclose behind. Until then, gose loverswill continue to sate their thirst withGasthaus & Gosebrauerei Bayrisch-er Bahnhofs archetypal LeipzigerGose, which is available in bottlesat beer shops nationwide, and withtrips to their nearest gose-produc-ing brew houses. Also look for two ofLeipzigers sister brews on shelveslater this year.


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Ron Gansberg at CascadeBrewing in Portland, Oregon.

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