Year of New Beer: Country Western Volume 5: Ginger Lime Gose, Country Boy Brewing/West 6th Brewing

Written By: Dion on 05/01/2017

The calendar reads May, which means that Lexington Craft Beer Week is fast approaching. And LCBW means the debut of Country Western, the annual collaboration between CBB and W6th. This year, Country Western arrives as a gose (goes-uh), traditionally a salty, somewhat tart, unfiltered German wheat beer. To me, the gose is just about the perfect warm weather beer. This version, however, kicks the style up a notch or two with the addition of ginger and lime. The base beer is a marriage of CBB's Ghost Gose and the Berliner Weisse from W6th, so the salt and sour are well represented from the start. As expected, ginger and lime are both very evident on the nose, with neither seeming to dominate the other. Light wheat and fruit skins join a moderate salinity and dusty quality as the glass warms. On the tongue is where this style proves to be a great choice to feature these two ingredients. Spicy ginger bites the mouth initially before retreating under an almost sweet lime juice. Hints of tart peach and crabapple provide a bit of pucker atop the wheat bread and light brine. Through the finish, the ginger and lime continue to be intertwined, allowing this gose to effectively straddle the line between salt and sour. I think fans of the style will find this one quite enjoyable, and I think it will produce a few converts as well. Ginger Lime Gose hits both taprooms (bottles and draft) on Friday, May 12. Check out http://lexbeerscene.com/LCBW for the complete list of LCBW activities--this is the biggest one yet! Many thanks to the guys at W6th and CBB for allowing me to preview this tonight.