Gose

ABV 4.2-4.8% · IBU 5-12 · SRM 3-4 · Serve 40-45F · Glass Tall and narrow · Extras salt, coriander

Identify

Pale yellow and hazy rather than murky. A tall white head over a beer that is visibly lively, with bubbles running up the glass the whole time you are drinking it. It looks like a wheat beer, because that is exactly what it is. Tart first, cleanly rather than sharply. Lemon and a soft bready wheat behind it, then a salt note that sits right at the edge of noticeable. Your mouth waters, the finish is dry, and it clears fast enough that you immediately want another mouthful.

Place

Goslar in the Harz mountains of Germany, on the river Gose, with records reaching back to the 1330s. It became a Leipzig speciality after 1738. The last brewery closed in 1966 and the style was rebuilt from 1986 onward.

Cause

Sourness in beer is usually a fault. Here it is the point, and the difference is control. A brewer making a Gose puts a specific bacterium into the beer on purpose, at a moment of their choosing, and takes it back out when the beer is as tart as they want.

Confused with

Berliner Weisse, which is sour and pale with no salt and no coriander. Witbier, which has coriander but is not sour and not salty. A modern kettle sour, which is tart and fruited but usually unseasoned. Lambic, which is sour from wild organisms and far more complicated.

Numbers

A Gose is a pale wheat beer that has been soured on purpose, then seasoned with salt and coriander. The salt surprises people, and it should not. It has been part of the recipe for centuries, and it is the thing that makes the style feel different from every other sour beer. Say it GOH-zeh.

Will you like it and Try

Lemonade, especially the sharp, not very sweet kind. This is the closest everyday match in the whole style. Salt on a margarita rim, or a squeeze of lime with salt. The salt and acid combination is exactly what this beer does. Salt on watermelon, or salted plums, or anything where salt is used to make fruit taste more like itself.

Order and Pair

Ask whether it has fruit in it. Most American goses do, and a mango gose and a traditional one are different drinks with the same name on the tap list. Ask how tart it is. Bar staff answer this one easily and it is the single most useful question about any sour beer. A full pour is right.

Judge, Myth and Remember

The tartness is clean and bright, more like lemon than like vinegar. The salt sits right at the edge of noticeable. You should feel your mouth water and struggle to name why. The coriander reads as lemony rather than soapy or perfumed. It is highly carbonated and finishes dry, so it clears and invites the next mouthful.