Gose

We recently received in a 'new' German beer from the Bayrisher Bahnhof Brewery in Leipzig. It was a rare treat for me seeing this quirky beer arrive as it is one of the few beer styles that I have never had. The beer is called Gose. I say it is a 'new' beer but it is a new beer only to me. The Leipziger Gose actually originated in the small town of Goslar and has documentation going back 1000 years. Like many other breweries in small towns in order to be able to make a profit they had to ship their beer to other towns and the town of Leipzig not only bought all the beer that the brewers in Goslar could make, they adopted the style and made it their own, just as Dusseldorf has their Alt and Cologne has their Kolsch. At one point in time Leipzig had over 80 Gose houses.
Leipziger Gose is a top-fermenting wheat beer with coriander, salt, and lactic acid bacteria added in the boil. It is a 4.5% alcohol eclectic beer whose name evokes a close relationship to the renowned Lambic/Geuze breweries in Belgium. There is a theory that the Belgium word Geuze (which is a blended lambic) actually may have been derived from the German word Gose. With the spices and lactic acid bacteria in the beer the similarities in the two beer styles and names sure does seem more than a coincidence. Yes, you did read correctly. This beer has coriander and salt in it. Now these two ingredients sure don't conform to the German Reinheitsgebot Beer Purity law but they were able to get away with it by getting an exception to the law because they were making the beer before the law was passed.
Because of the coriander and the salt the beer does have a unusual taste for a German beer. Even though the beer is supposed to be sour like a German Berliner Weiss I did not get much sourness at all in the bottle I tried. Just like Berliner Weiss the beer is often mixed with raspberry or woodruff syrup (Both of which we have at Papago if you want to add a it to the beer).
After 1900 the beer style all but vanished as Pilsners dominated the landscape. Coincidentally the building that the brewery is housed in was originally a train station that was built in 1842, a landmark year in brewing. In that year a new style of beer was being born farther south, in Pilsen, Czech and oddly enough both Pilsner Urquell and the Bayrisher Bahnhof Brewery both have eerily similar arch gated entrances. The spread of the bottom-fermenting Pilsner style as well as economic decline of East Germany under the communists contributed to the demise of the Leipziger Gose which was last brewed in the mid 1960s. It wasn't until 2000 that the Bayrisher Bahnhof Brewery brought back the style.
Gose also had the attraction that it is reputed to greatly improve sexual potency so you should buy it soon before Johnny finds out about it's magical powers and buys it all up for himself.Prost, Ron