I recently made a day trip to Drumheller to show off the badlands and dinosaur museum to some visitors from out of town, and after learning all about the Albertosaurus, we made sure to stop at the local brewery for a pint. Much to my delight, Drumheller’s own Valley Brewing had plenty of their local wares to offer both on tap and canned for takeaway, including a unique beer style named Gose, which originally hails from the German town of Goslar.
The history of the Gose beer style dates back to the 13th century, where it quickly spread from its small town origins to the nearby metropolitan centres like Leipzig, where it became particularly popular, with the city boasting numerous Gosenschänken, or taverns that only served Gose beer.
Like many German beers, Gose is a wheat beer, and typically uses at least 50% wheat, with the remaining grains being barley, rye, or lesser substitutes like corn.
In centuries past, Gose was spontaneously fermented using whatever wild airborne yeasts happened to be floating around the brewery, so the flavours varied significantly from batch to batch. These were the days before the discovery of yeast, when fermentation was thought to be some sort of magical gift from heaven.
As the centuries passed, the science behind fermentation became more widely understood, so brewers were able to isolate their preferred yeast strains for a consistent brew from batch to batch.
Gose is a unique style that adds coriander and salt for flavouring, then inoculates the brew with lactobacillus for a sour finish. The end result is a beer with herbal notes, a lemony citrus, and a salty finish. Hops are used mostly for aromatics, and result in very little hop bitterness.
If you are a fan of the Belgian Witbier or Berliner Weisse styles of beer, Gose will be right up your alley. If you were raised on a steady diet of Coors Lite, Gose will probably not be the beer for you.
Gose beer is for adventurous boozers, as sour is not typically a flavour that comes to mind when ordering a beer. Do not fret, as the flavour is clean and only slightly tart, with hints of lemon being a typical flavour. There will be no Gose beers that remind you of pickle juice!
The Gose beer style is undergoing a revival of sorts at the moment, both in its ancestral home of Germany, and in craft breweries across North America.
The style disappeared briefly during WWII when all the breweries were conscripted into the war effort, but rebounded in 1949, then disappearing again in 1966 due to changing consumer preferences.
The epic decade known as the 1980s, noted for hair-metal bands and terrible fashions, also saw the return of the Gose beer style, which grew slowly in Germany, then spread to North America during the craft beer boom, and has been increasing in popularity ever since.
The Aerial Lime Gose from Drumheller’s Valley Brewing is about as local as a beer can get, with their barley malts coming from the fine maltsters at Origin Malting & Brewing in Strathmore, then fermented with an ale yeast, and flavoured with lime, coriander, and salt.
Looking a bit west to the big city, Calgary’s own Wild Rose Brewing first brewed a Gose beer way back in 2013, and has released a seasonal Gose for the past few summers, so look for them again when patio season finally arrives.
Also in Calgary, Banded Peak Brewing occasionally puts out Gondola Gose as a summer seasonal, which I enjoyed on several patios last summer, and hope to see again if we ever see an end to this eternal winter.
The slightly tart flavours in a typical Gose beer seems to be an irresistible call to crafty brewers to play with the flavour profile, adding tropical fruits or herbal infusions to tantalize your taste buds.
The slight lemony tartness and salty aftertaste makes Gose easy to pair with food. I like to match it with my world-famous homemade ceviche, or a soft cheese like chevre.
If you have never tried a Gose or other sour beer, look for one where beer nerds tend to gather, or ask at your local bottle shop.
