Wild Beer Co: Sleeping Lemons Export (England: Gose: 6% ABV)
Visual: Clear apple juice with short lived white fizzy head.
Nose: Cider apples. Salted lemon. Musky grapes. Vinegar touch. Sweaty socks. Slightly sharp. Jiff lemon.
Body: Tart lemon. Mild golden syrup. Salty. Pocari sweat drink. Chalk touch. Tart apples. Light brown bread. Caramelised brown sugar. Lime notes.
Finish: Lemon juice. Strawberries. Salt. Vanilla. Pocari sweat. Tart apples. Light chilli warmth.
Conclusion: Looks like Sleeping Lemons just needed a bit more weight to make it work. Which may note have been the opening line you expected from a tasting note with the words “Sweaty socks” in it. Don’t worry, that is a very mild note, and in it’s place is pretty inoffensive. Really.
Anyway, with the extra strength the lemon now really comes across. First like sharp lemons, then like dried salted lemons, then a mix of both. It has a bigger sweet body that the original as well – the tart character is the the main part – front and centre, but now it doesn’t feel light behind. It has something to push forwards when the citrus fades.
I think, by my poor memory, the hibernating lemons keg version was slightly better – probably the slight extra keg carbonation actually helped there – it made it feel like a fresher and more lovely drink. One of the flaws here is that it feels slightly still so it doesn’t liven up the mouth as you would expect. Therefore over time it can become a tad heavy on the tongue.
However, despite that, In general this is a big improvement. The traditional Wild Beer apple character meets a beefed up lime gose with hints of the Japanese Pocari Sweat energy drink in there as well, because of course!
Not perfect, but a big improvement.
Background: I am fairly sure this is the same as, or very similar to, “Hibernating Lemons” which I ran into on keg a while back and very much enjoyed. They have the same abv and are both beefed up versions of Sleeping Lemons. Sleeping Lemons didn’t do much for me, so I was surprised by how much I liked Hibernating Lemons, so when I grabbed this from Independent Spirit I hoped it was as good. Drunk while listening to The Algorithm: Brute Force. Very strange mathcore and electronic mash up music. Very fun.
