Sunday, July 20, 2014

Anderson Valley's Highway 128 The Kimmie, The Yink, and the Holy Gose: Stange or Weizen glass?

Tonight I will try my first Gose. Finally some importers are starting to bring in US goses into Japan and I was able to get my hands on Anderson Valley's Highway 128 The Kimmie, The Yink, and the Holy Gose.

It clocks in at 4.2% Wow, this was a crazy gusher! I've never had a can where the beer shot up out of it like that. I brought it home yesterday so it had some time to settle down - surprising. Anyways, on to the beer!

Served in a stange:

For some reason the carbonation seems to be clinging to the sides of this glass much more than the weizen glass pour making it look more opaque.

Sour fruity salty smoke aroma makes this appetizing but confusing to my nose. This is my first gose though I've had a grodziskie. Compared to that cloudy beast this is a pretty clear deep gold pour. 

The taste is exceptionally tart! Very tart, light berries, then solid bready malts with a sour salty finish. Interesting and less of a mindbender than that Polish Grodziskie I had (Pinta Grodziskie 3.0). 

It is light bodied and easy to drink I can see why goses are becoming a popular summer style, think of a more lactic sour kind of lemonade type refreshing summer drink - though this tasted to me more of a berry tartness than lemon, cranberry-esque perhaps?


Served in a weizen glass:


The same clear deep gold as in the stange but with less carbonation rising from the glass. Both glasses had thick heads initially from the gusher but vanished relatively quickly leaving behind almost no lacing barring a few spots in the stange.

The aroma in the weizen glass gives more yeasty notes, spicy fruitiness with a hint of sour smoke. The stange seems to give off a more concentrated aroma.

The taste seems MUCH more tart, a bit of biscuit, sour berries, mouth coating puckering sourness. It seems a bit more in your face and less complex than in the stange. Similar smooth light body. 

Judging from this a gose is much more sour and tart with light saltiness whereas the grodziskie had a substantially more smokey flavor/aroma.

I liked it served in a stange better. For those who like tart refreshing summer drinks definitely give this a try!



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