I just noticed a Gose by Southern Tier which is above 8% abv. A tart cherry gose. I've noticed quite a few others above 6%. Are these true to the style or considered more to be in the sour style? I've had gose beers with low abv, and even though it's not a favorite style of mine, they didn't upset my stomach the way sours do. If I take a couple of sips of a lambic or sour, my gut is going to cry out in pain. For the initiated, what's your take on high abv gose beers??
As far as traditional style guidelines go, anything above 4.8% is technically out of style for a gose. While I appreciate the parameters that BJCP Guidelines give, I don't really see the need to stick to them unless you're competing. So, sure, you can have an 8% gose. I've had a couple of the 6%+ goses out there and enjoyed them. They tend to amp up the salt and lacto in my experience, which I like (also not "traditional" or technically "within style"). I think the main detractor of the additional ABV is that it changes the spirit of what a gose is typically meant to be. That is, a low alcohol beer that you can have several of without getting too drunk. It would be easy to have 3 Westbrook Gose on the beach, but if you throw back 3 of the Southern Tier, you're in a different place for sure. So, yes, in a way it kind of does make it more of just a "sour" in that regard. I don't have any stomach issues with sours so I can't comment there.
I'd much prefer to see more brett/mixed fermentation Gose ala Gose Gone Wild, around 5%abv, rather than higher abv. The Southern Tier was labeled "Imperial Gose/ Imperial Sour Ale" so while that may not actually be a BJCP style, to me that's the best they can do to inform the customer that it's a higher OG/ABV version of the style. It was a somewhat interesting beer, almost like a wheatwine with cherries and some lactic acid.
The only one I had that was of higher abv was Newburgh's A Little Gose A Long Way brewed with maple syrup at 7% it was really nice. I wish they would can it!
I sometimes wonder how many brewing innovations have resulted from someone having made a bad pun and then thinking, Hmmmm...
I'm certainly glad an American brewery decided to take a crushable beer and turn it into a one and done pour. sarcasm off
Kent Falls does one called Walking Away in Slow Motion as The Car Explodes Behind You. Great name. Tasty beer. Comes in at 7.0% https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/37192/188273/
It takes a very special sour to remain good above 7%. It would take an extremely special gose or Berliner weisse to be good above that ABV to me, and even then I would knock it quite a bit for exceeding the style's general ABV by so much.
The ST Cherry Gose had some brandy-like notes , from the alcohol. I liked it, but it didn't have that light,crisp, refreshing taste/feel that I'd expect from a gose. After I figured that out on the first one, it was a late-night sipper, not an End-of-a-Hot-Day refresher. : )
I could live in Bavaria, drinking beers made to style. We all have different tastes and expectations of beer.
That's an interesting comment. A beer like Rodenbach Caractere Rouge pulls it off right at your line. Maybe you had that one in mind. Going higher, I personally think "old ales" can pull it off, but people don't ordinarily think of those as being in the sour category. Tomayto, tomahto. On a different note, I can be be pretty traditional, but I have no problem with brewers making imperial versions of styles... as long as they put the ABV on the bottle since I'll be less likely to buy them.
I don't disagree that there are actually a multitude of examples that one can point to that succeed well above that ABV. Beers like Russian River Consecration, Jester King Boxer's Revenge, Cascade Sang Royal, Crooked Stave Nightmare on Brett, literally every Ale Apothecary beer, and quite a few Mikkeller Spontan- beers. I just think despite their prevalence, they are still the exception. Most sours would do better to be lower ABV, and that goes double for Berliners and goses since their native ABV is so very low.
I may be cynical, but...they want to brew a high ABV beer, but leverage the marketing power of the Gose name. I feel the same way about the influx of "Imperial Oktoberfests" and (literally insert any adjective conceivable) IPA. There reaches a point where you stray so far away from the parameters of the style that the beer is no longer identifiable as being part of that style.
There DOES exist a native high ABV Gose, Goseator from bayerischer Bahnhof, Leipzig. It has 8.5% ABV and isn't too bad. But it is a limited seasonal product, they still mainly make a "traditional",standard strength Gose, it's more of an oddity than anything else. Bierzauberei from austria makes a few higher abv Goses every now and then as well, such as Hexentritt Gose and Power Gose, both are good as well. But yeah, it should NEVER be the only Gose a brewery does, and should not be compared to traditional low ABV offerings, in my opinion. I never had an american version at all though, so I don't know how they compare to the "real thing" anyway...
