Athletic Brewing Co. Gose

This is the Golden Gose that Veruca Salt wants...and actually could have since it's NA!

Gose is a historical beer style that hails out of the Leipzig area of Germany. It is an unfiltered and sour Wheat ale with a lemony tartness and brinyness from the use of sea salt in the flavoring process. The souring comes from brewing with the food and human-friendly lactobaccilus bacteria. Lactobaccilus is commonly found in fermented foods such as yogurt.

When Gose started appearing on the US craft beer scene several years ago, I became a raving fan of the style. They are low in ABV and incredibly thirst-slaking given the brinyness from the sea salt. It's a style that whenever I find a new brand or flavoring offshoot, I have to try it.

Imagine my surprise when in the first summer of my nonalcoholic craft beer exploration, Athletic Brewing puts out a Gose. It quickly became my favorite NA brew at that very early stage. I really enjoyed it and regularly consumed it towards the end of the summer of 2018. Unfortunately, being largely a warm-weather seasonal, production ended for the season rather shortly after it came out. Over the colder months, there was a lot of anticipation for the re-release.

Fortunately, the re-release came very early in the warm season of 2019, seeing the first batch come out in April. An online promo sale saw that first batch sell out in 2 minutes! It seems all of my positive talk about over the fall and winter had drummed up quite a bit of interest. I recently received a six-pack of the 2019 Gose.

Plain and simple, it is amazing! Whereas, I still get the sense that other NA brews are missing a bit of the mouthfeel I expect from the representative style, the Gose absolutely nails the mouthfeel I expect from a Gose. Athletic has never really struggled with the flavor aspect of any of their brews and the Gose does not disappoint. The lemony tartness and the brinyness is captivating, leaving me wanting to savor and play with each swig to tease out even more flavor. I want to drink this delicious NA brew all day long, but I can't, because I don't want to run out. This is certainly one NA brew that I think could go a frothy head-to-a frothy head with any other well-established, traditional Gose.

Athletic Brewing's Gose earns the position of my absolute favorite NA craft brew at this time.