Deschutes Brewery Gose tasting

I’ve been fascinated with the Gose style of beer for awhile (like many beer geeks these days, of course) and seek it out whenever I can, so I was thrilled when Deschutes Brewery‘s Veronica Vega told me awhile back that she was attempting a Gose. This would be the first such style of beer that Deschutes has brewed (that I’m aware of), as well as possibly the first (commercial?) Gose from a Central Oregon brewery (though of course I might be wrong on this), so when this past Saturday the beer had come to fruition and they were doing a tasting, I made sure to be there.

Deschutes Gose tasting

A cool angle to the story is detailed in this blog post: they teamed up with Ben Jacobsen of Jacobsen Salt Company—Oregon’s only artisanal salt producer, harvesting salt from the Oregon coast waters at Netarts Bay—who had previously teamed up with Portland’s Breakside Brewery to produce a Gose.

Jacobsen salt used in Deschutes Gose

Overall I thought the beer was quite good, though I am still calibrating myself to Goses so I can’t authoritatively speak to authenticity to style and whatnot. The lactic acid is mostly evident to me on the nose, though Veronica assures me the lab says it’s something like 0.7% acidic (similar to a chardonnay); it has a lovely drinkability and the salt is really evident to my palate: very pleasant, very ocean-y, similar in character to how you might get seawater in your mouth and have the salty/briney aftertaste from it. Not much coriander to me either, except in the background, and overall the beer really has a nice soft body to it that’s conducive to multiple pints.

Deschutes Gose samples

It’s 5.5% abv so while not quite sessionable, I think it’s a great hot weather beer and definitely one to seek out.

The salt itself is amazingly good, too; we bought a 4-ounce package for $10, and interestingly Jacobsen also offers up some flavored salts: lemon zest, Pinot Noir, and truffle he had on hand (we didn’t sample any, but the truffle smelled amazing), and there are several others available online.

I’m suitably impressed all around, and need to go back for more. Plus, it’s renewed my interest in attempting a homebrewed Gose; I have a bunch of rhubarb that I’m thinking I’d throw in there to see how it adds to the sour character.

Veronica Vega and Ben Jacobsen

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