As common as sours seem to be in the modern craft landscape, it’s not often breweries release such beers without heavy fruit additions. That’s particularly true for anything labelled a gose or Berliner weisse, with brewers playing on the clean tartness of a kettle sour by bringing citrus or tropical fruits to the table. But Sobremesa Fermentary & Blendery tend to brew at their own pace and there's little about their gose Without Concern that compares it to shelves of kettle sour cans. The beer’s been inspired by the traditional sour beers of Germany’s Leipzig (which is where gose found a home after being developed in the small town of Goslar) with the name a reference to one of the city’s original gose taverns, Gosenschenke Ohne Bedenken. The story goes that beer drinkers would walk in, wonder why what they were being served was salty and sour and ask if it was okay to drink. The response from the publican would always be “ohne bedenken”, or “without concern.”
As for this barrel-fermented gose, there are some additions in the shape of crushed coriander and sea salt which were added towards the end of the beer’s boil, while those barrels contained a mix of saccharomyces and Brettanomyces yeasts along with lactobacillus. The result is a sour that’s incredibly moreish and zippy, with notes of lemon zest, grapefruit and coriander joined by an underlying funk, aromas akin to sourdough yeast the lightest touch of salinity on the finish.
Will Ziebell
Published June 10, 2022 2022-06-10 00:00:00
