Wild Beer Co: Sleeping Lemons (England: Gose: 3.6% ABV)
Visual: Pale hazy lemon juice. Thin white head that doesn’t last long. Some carbonation.
Nose: Dry. Light lemons. Muggy wheat. Cardboard.
Body: Tart lemon. Salty. Slightly muggy wheat beer back. Lemon juice. Lime notes.
Finish: Lightly salty crackers. Fish skin. Lemon juice.
Conclusion: Ok, flavor wise this one is pretty easy to sum up – lemon juice, slightly salty, with that muggy wheat beer back a gose often offers. Contrary to what the bottle says I would hardly call it “Wonderfully complex” or even that sour when you come down to it.
So, the more important question is posed, does it work as a beer? Eh. Well. A gose tends to have to be really good for me to get along with it. While the style intrigues me I’ve only encountered a handful I would drink regularly. Which is my polite way of saying that under the lemon, the base gose here really isn’t that exciting.
The lemon is a good pick for the beer though, the tarter elements really livens the beer up and complements the saltiness. It refreshes where the saltiness induces a thirst. Overall, I don’t really have much to say about this on. The base adds a little to it so it doesn’t just taste like alcoholic lemon juice, but not that much. It never really comes across as a beer in itself.
So mainly salty alcoholic lemon juice. Mainly. A bit meh for me.
Background: Is it gose season or something? This is a gose from Wild Beer Co, made with lemons as well as the usual salt. Wild beer co really have been living up to their name recently and are probably my favorite new brewery of the past few years. Drunk whilst listening to Foo Fighters: The Colour and The Shape. Used to be a huge fan of them then fell out of the habit of listening to them during the time they spent denying HIV caused AIDS. Thankfully they put that behind them years ago, just never really got back into listening to them a lot. Still fun. grabbed this bottle at Independent Spirit.
