Tuesday 8 October 2013

Anything gose?

A recent tweet from gurning enthusiasts Boak and Bailey reminded me of something I've been pondering for a few months:



Back when I visited Amsterdam a highlight was getting to taste some beers of obscure European styles I'd never come across before, which included gose.

"a pale, top-fermenting wheat beer, flavoured with coriander and salt. There's a hefty lactic acid content and was probably once spontaneously-fermented"  

I was more than a little surprised on my return to see that an English brewery was brewing a gose, but with added gooseberries, amongst other things. As I love beer history I thought it was great that this obscure historic style was being brewed here, but the added ingredients disturbed me.

Without wishing to stray too far into the reactionary realm of Bolshevik ideology, I couldn't help but think that shouldn't you try brewing a historic beer "to style" before you start changing it? Otherwise aren't you just making it up as you go along? Which of course you're free to do, but in that case you're not brewing a historic beer at all.  

Is it my scientific ways, wanting to keep variables to a minimum? Or am I just being boring? But obscure beers brewed as they were historically interest me more than innovative offshoots.
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19 comments:

  1. The Beer Nut8 October 2013 at 13:53

    I'm going to answer no to the first question. If the brewer doesn't want to make a straight gose that shouldn't preclude them from running with some gosey ideas and even using the word, so long as it's qualified. I've enjoyed most of the beers that this trend has brought me (Sharp's Panzerfaust being a particular highlight), and even though I know the use of the word gose on a tap badge isn't going to transport me to Leipzig, I do have a rough idea what to expect from the beer which is the whole point of beer styles. Should you have at least attempted to enter the East India trade before presenting an IPA to the public? Should at least one brotherhood have expressed a preference for your dark beer before you label it a porter?

    Besides, of the last two hacked goses I saw, one was labelled a "gose-ish" and the other "a sort of gose". Responsible behaviour from the neo-goseries there, I think.

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    1. Ed8 October 2013 at 20:09

      I fully approve of clear and unambiguous labelling.

      Not having had the beers though I'm not swayed by how they taste so I can offer a completely unbiased opinion based solely on my prejudices.

      I don't think there's any prerequisite for brewing any beer but I still feel disturbed if obscure beer styles are becoming known for their fruit flavoured spin offs. Even if they do taste great I'd still like to know what the original tastes like.

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    2. The Beer Nut8 October 2013 at 20:12

      So go and drink the original, then.

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    3. Ed9 October 2013 at 07:01

      I've never seen a gose (or gose-ish) on sale.

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    4. The Beer Nut9 October 2013 at 09:23

      Try Leipzig.

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    5. Ed9 October 2013 at 13:21

      Bit of a trek though isn't it? If only a British brewer made gose ;-)

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  2. Phil8 October 2013 at 18:14

    I'm answering Yes. I don't know where TBN has been drinking, but to date I've only ever seen one beer labelled 'gose', 'gose-ish', 'sort of gose' or 'return to the planet of gose', viz. the aforementioned gooseberry-and-rosehip-flavoured Salty Kiss.

    Personally I'd want to discourage messing around with added ingredients anyway - I'd much rather taste a really good bitter or mild than a triple IPA with goji berries and Seville oranges or an imperial stout with kopi luwak (hang on, that's a real thing). The trouble is that making a big impression by cranking up the flavours - including the non-beer-derived flavours - is much easier than making a really good beer in an 'ordinary' style. This goes double for unfamiliar styles - the Magic Rock blog post comes close to acknowledging that it'd be harder to brew a plain gose and get it right than it is to do something new and different based loosely on gose. Me, I'm curious to know what a gose would taste like, but I'm never going to find out by drinking the likes of Salty Kiss. (What was it like? It was like a pale beer flavoured with gooseberries. Can't say I noticed the rosehips.)

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    1. The Beer Nut8 October 2013 at 18:24

      If you want to know where I've been drinking you can always read my blog...

      I get why you'd prefer to drink a well-made bitter or mild rather than a beer with unusual ingredients; what I don't understand is why you'd rather I and everyone else didn't. Seems a bit mean-spirited.

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    2. Phil8 October 2013 at 20:59

      Of course I read your blog - don't remember you mentioning any goseses, though.

      I'm not mean-spirited, just selfish! I think there's room for many different styles, but I'm worried that a vogue for New! Big! Different! flavours is going to leave no room for anything except more New! Big! Different! flavours.

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    3. The Beer Nut8 October 2013 at 21:09

      Three so far. Two more to come this week.

      I dub this The British Paradox: dismissal of outré beer styles as insignificant outside a handful of urban areas while at the same time treating them as a real and present threat to traditional brewing values.

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    4. Phil9 October 2013 at 00:18

      Not a paradox, really. Interesting new brewers - the kind who are only selling to enthusiasts at the moment - are where the next generation of Summer Lightnings are going to come from. If those brewers effectively turn away from 'ordinary' styles, bitter drinkers will be left with nothing but boring brown bitter.

      Also, I think it's just easier to bang the flavour gong really hard than it is to excel at a traditional style, so I think the latter needs to be encouraged.

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    5. The Beer Nut9 October 2013 at 09:35

      Where's the evidence that such breweries are turning away from ordinary styles? Does Thornbridge Wye mean Jaipur is harder come by? Has the existence of Hardknott Æther Blæc made Continuum rarer? It's not a zero sum game: you can have it both ways.

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  3. Bailey8 October 2013 at 18:26

    If I was a pro brewer, I think I would want to know that I could brew a straight gose before brewing an experimental one.

    Having said that, both Boak and I enjoyed Salty Kiss (the grapefruit variant) enormously -- much more than any of the 'real' gose beers we drank in Goslar/Leipzig a few years back.

    What is really disappointing is that more German brewers don't seem to have given it a go.

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  4. jamesbwxm9 October 2013 at 15:48

    Just fancied pointing out, as no-one seems to have bothered yet, that Magic Rock did do a straight gose - the original salty kiss. No added ingrediants that shouldn't have been there. It was very nice. Whether it was true to style or not, I don't know. I've never had the opportunity to taste the ones from Leipzig.

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    1. Bailey9 October 2013 at 16:36

      Someone did point that out on Twitter but we couldn't find out anything about it online. (Not that we looked that hard.)

      FWIW, the beer that prompted our Tweet, quoted above, was a quince Gose from (I think) Italy.

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    2. Ed9 October 2013 at 17:30

      That's interesting, I can only find fruity ones online.

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    3. jamesbwxm9 October 2013 at 23:22

      As it turns out, you're both right and I'm not.

      The original contained gooseberries, sea buckthorn and rosehips.

      http://www.magicrockbrewing.com/blog/salty-kiss-gooseberry-gose/

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  5. Cooking Lager9 October 2013 at 16:02

    If only there was a beer police to sort this sort of nonesense out. Then everyone would have to comply or be illegal.

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    1. Ed9 October 2013 at 17:46

      The trouble is the beer police would soon get bogged down sorting out the craft beer from the crafty beer.

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