Gose takes its name from the town that originated it, Goslar. It became very popular in the nearby town of Leipzig but almost vanished in the mid-twentieth century. Thankfully, due to the determination of a few brewers, the style has not been lost forever and is undergoing something of a revival, being produced by two or three breweries after an absence of over 30 years.
Gose is a top-fermented wheat beer, sometimes including oats, with the addition of coriander and salt. The inclusion of coriander and salt is contrary to the ridiculously strict beer purity law (“reinheitsgebot”), but as the law was a Bavarian one, and gose originated in Prussia, this wasn’t a problem until the unification of Germany and the introduction of the law to Prussia.
Gose was traditionally spontaneously fermented, like Belgian lambic ales or Berliner Weisse Bier, with fermentation being initiated by natural wild yeasts carried in the air, instead of the addition of particular strains of yeast. I’m not sure if today’s versions are.
Gose is traditionally bottled in a flattish, near semicircular bottle, with a tall, narrow neck. The neck was designed to trap the foam of fermentation and thus produce a natural bung. Gose is incredibly difficult to find, unless you visit Leipzig, where the Gosenschenke Ohne Bedenken tavern was until recently the only place in the world where it is served.
In 2000, the Gosebrauerei Bayerischer Bahnhof reopened as a gose brewery and there are now several pubs in the city that sell gose again.
