OnTap Magazine

ontapmag.co.za | Autumn 2019 | 43 to beer, where America leads, the rest of the world follows. But while many breweries have been experimenting with this newly revived style, it has also provoked scorn from some corners. Joe Keohane, writing for rillist.com, was particularly brutal in his missive entitled, Craft Beer Is Dead. Gose Killed It . e piece launched a humorous attack on the style, including side splitting lines like, “It tasted like it had been squeegeed o the back of a German day laborer toiling in a coriander processing plant”. Not impressed, he continued with, “and what the rise of Gose says, at least to me, is that the craft beer revolution has run out of ideas”. row in the tartness from it essentially being infected and sprinkle some of the world’s most polarising spice and you have a beer that disgusts as much as it delights. Beer nerds however, seem to largely love it for its tightrope walk of balance between, salt, tartness and spice. is was made evident in the 2018 SA National Homebrew Champs. e winning beer “What Gose Around Comes Around” impressed the pants o all that judged it. Carel van Heerden, a relative newcomer to homebrewing, nailed it. It was sublime and had many people who never before tried a Gose sitting up and taking notice. He was encouraged to enter the beer by his good mate and previous year’s champion, Nick Reed. Carel was not convinced that a “salty sour” beer could win a competition as many drinkers just don’t have the palate for it “and anyway, everyone knows that big, dark beers win competitions”, he lamented. Nick disagreed and was quick to point out that chefs use salt, acidity and spices to create culinary masterpieces so why not brewers? “Salt is a magnifying glass for avour,” he says. “It brings out all the ingredients. Like adding salt to food while cooking it enhances the avour of the food without dominating.” SAVOURY SIPPING is also mirrors what is said to become the big trend in cocktails in 2019. e savoury cocktail is making big waves, with bartenders creating beverages that mimic and closely resemble avour pro les we are used to seeing from rock star chefs. So if it can be done with cocktails, then why not with beer? e Gose is just the beginning. I disagree with Joe Keohane, I don't believe that the revolution has run out of ideas, I believe that it is looking at its past to revive what zzy light lager beers had veiled in pursuit of making beer as bland as possible. Local commercial versions have until recently been few and far between but enthusiasm is gathering pace. Nick Bush and his team at Drifter Brewing Co. are famously very fond of the sea, so naturally saline water is something they would gravitate to. During Cape Town’s 2017/2018 water crisis, Drifter released the Water Restriction Gose which used a drop of the ocean in the brew (alongside their usual water supply). Subsequently they brewed a Gose IPA with Migration Brewing from Oregon, USA. Trever Bass, head brewer at Migration, gave some insight on the rise of Gose in his homeland. “It is a reaction to the popularity in sour beers,” he says. “It is less acidic than the Berliner Weiss and is a gateway beer for those wanting to try something new”. He continues to explain that it has become an “anything goes” beer (pun intended). Brewers in the States are adding all sorts of ingredients to Gose, from cucumber to blood orange. e beer is dynamic and provides a playground for innovation, as proved by the second leg of Drifter and Migration’s collab tour, which saw them brewing an Oyster Gose in Cape Town. Gose beers actually caused some of the biggest splashes among South African beer nerds in 2018. First there was Drifter’s Water Restriction and later in the year, a much sought-after collab Sorghum Gose from Little Wolf and Stellenbosch Brewing Company. Little Wolf’s StefanWiswedel is something of an evangelist for the style. He recently spent some time in Leipzig, spiritual home of the Gose. “It was fascinating to taste the original Gose beers on their home turf,” Stefan recalls. “ ey were much more subtle and nuancedthanmanyofthemoderninterpretations had lead me to believe, something that we tried to emulate in our Sorghum Gose.” Stefan had previously brewed a collab Gose with Black Eagle Brewing Co called S.O.T.E (Salt Of e Earth), which used seawater from the Langebaan lagoon. And late last year Rory Lancellas from Aegir Project in Cape Town also dabbled in Gose, opting to add melon to produce a beer as polarising as it was unique. For the record, I found it delightfully refreshing, with just the right amount of tartness and salt. Time will tell whether this style gains any real traction locally and whether it can move from passing trend to taproom staple. Judging by the pace at which the beer world is moving I would not be surprised if another unheralded beer style from some ancient town pops up and takes the Gose limelight. I for one would be disappointed to see the back of this deliciously divisive beer. Salt is a magnifying glass for flavour