Citrus Gose

This beer was created as a joint effort between one of my beer buddies, Drei, and myself. The idea was Drei's and meant to take a beer style that lends itself to being a great thirst quencher for the Florida heat, as well as carrying a local theme. So the base style was decided to be a Gose, which is a historic German sour wheat beer spiced with coriander and salt. The local aspect came from the addition of locally sourced citrus. Then after recalling a blog post from David Crane of Bitter Barley where he used sea water for a San Diego Gose it seemed like a great fit for us. So conceptually Drei choose the style and was in charge of sourcing citrus and local Tampa Bay sea water, as well as being an eager assistant and first time brewer. My portion was to create the recipe to fit the style and make the beer come to life.

The brewday went really smooth. Took the day off, sent the wife and kid off to work and daycare. Drei showed up a touch early so we got right to it. Set up, grain tasting, milling, mashing, it all went great. Once we got the boil going it was time to settle on the final ratio of fruit. This was all done on the fly and not very scientifically. I know we zested one grapefruit, two limes, added a whole lime cut in half as well as a Myers lemon. The kumquats were cut in half and probably about two cups of fruit. These were all added at the 10 minute mark and the coriander was added at 5 minutes. The decision making for the fruit was aided by a fantastic beer that Drei brought to share. It was a Lost Abbey Duck Duck Gooze batch 2. This beer far exceeded my expectations the pure essence of lemon hit me square in the nose! Couldn't get enough, so ultimately that's why we added a lemon to this Gose. So beer does help with good decision making! 

Some of the harder parts of wild brewing can be getting your wild bacteria and bugs to do what you want. This is the only thing that I can tell so far that I failed on in this beer, however I did buy some insurance. That being said I was originally going to harvest lactobacillus off of some grain in a weak wort. This is something I've done successfully several times in the past. But seeing as I had someone else involved and taking a day out of their busy work schedule I decided to buy a back up of Wyeast lactobacillus. I'm glad I did since the starter with grain ended up with a non friendly bug in there and had to be thrownout. The Wyeast starter was smelling and looking good. So when it was time to pitch the lacto into the wort the Wyeast was the clear winner. We also choose to add the bottle dregs of a couple of my Berliner Weisses. The Berliner is one I've previously cultured lacto from grain and there's a touch of Brettanomyces in there as well. 

I'm really looking forward to this beer. It should have a nice mild lactic tartness with a mild salinity similar to a sport drink and a huge citrus aroma and taste. After being in the fermenter for a day the bacteria seem happy and is kicking off a wonderful citrus aroma. After a couple days I will start taste testing for tartness then will transfer from the heat of the garage to the fermentation chamber with German Ale yeast. 

Recipe:
Assistant Brewer: Drei

Style: Gose

OG: 1.050

Target FG: 1.006

IBU's: 5

SRM: 4.9

6 pounds Wheat Malt 

4 pounds Pilsner Malt

8 ounces Aciduated Malt

8 ounces Melanoiden Malt

Rice Hulls

60 minutes .40 ounces Hallertaer Mitt

10 minutes zest of 1 grapefruit

10 minutes zest of 2 limes

10 minutes 1 whole lime cut in half

10 minutes 1 whole Myers lemon cut in half

10 minutes 2 cups kumquats cut in half

5 minutes 13 grams coriander 

Full Boil 750ml Tampa Bay sea water

Wyeast 5335 Lactobacillus 

Wyeast 1007 German Ale

    

Third place Fruit Beer Catagory 20A Hogtown Brew Off

Brewing Up an Award

During my time as a home brewer I have always taken the stance of brewing what I like. This means not worrying about style guidelines all that much. I have always used the styles and books on brewing for a basic guideline but that's where it ends. It's always appreciated when someone enjoys your beers but in the end it only matters if you are happy with it. So over the years this has been who I am as a brewer, not uncommon among brewers. Last year I entered my first homebrew competition and entered a few beers. This was going to be a learning experience for me since I had no clue what to expect. However I wanted feedback and without being in a club this was a good choice. The competition was the Best Florida Beer Championships. Two of my beers fared pretty well and advanced to the second round. This is where they gig you on teqnical flaws up to and including categorizing the beer properly. My hefeweizen was gigged for not having enough banana. My rustic rye saison gigged for having Brettanomyces and entered under saison and not Belgian specialty. No worries it's a learning experience and it was my first competition. It was great reading that my saison was one of the best Saisons one of the judge had ever tasted! 

As the days, weeks and months go on I forgot about competitions. I brewed here and there having a little one in the house meant a little less brewing so make it count when you can. One of the beers was inspired from the book Brew Like Monk and the first beer I drank to celebrate my daughters birth, Orval. Orval is known to be one of the best beers in the world and a category all to its own. It's best described as a Belgian Pale with Brettanomyces. I designed the beer around a recipe found in Brew Like a Monk and tweaked it to be my own. The addition of Brettanomyces strains was an area I veered of into my own world. I opted to use three commercially available strains. These being brett bruxellensis, brett lambicus and brett claussenii. I named the beer 'Esque, meaning in the style of (Orval) but not a clone. 

As time went on I forgot completely about completions  then one day I saw on social media that entries were ready for submission in the same state wide competition I entered last year. As luck would have it I had a few beers I was proud of and wanted to enter, 'Esque being one of them. The anticipation for this event had me on the edge of my seat for weeks. I wasn't really thinking I would place but really wanted the feedback. Then one fine day I looked on Facebook and saw the medal list was posted online. Out of morbid curiosity I looked and HOLY SHIT, there my name was next to a gold medal for category 16 Belgian and French Ale. 'Esque brought home a gold!!!! I was thrilled and couldn't wait for the score cards to come in.  

As time went on I got more curios about Best of Show and started stalking the BFBC website. Eventually they announced the winners and low and behold my name was up there as First Runner Up! Somehow my beer managed to score 2nd place overall out of 713 entires in 28 categories from all across Florida. I have been walking on air ever since. 

Recipe: 'Esque

Style: Belgian Specialty

OG: 1.060

FG: 1.006

ABV: 7%

IBU's: 31.6

SRM: 10.6

Batch Size 5.5 gallons

Mash: 154*F

9 pounds Pilsner Malt 76.19%

1.5 pounds Caravienne Malt 12.7%

1 pound Candi Syrup D-45 8.47%

5 ounces Table Sugar 2.65%

80 minutes 1 ounce Pearle

15 minutes 1/2 ounce Styrian Goldings

Dry hop 15 Days 2 ounces Sterling

WLP 510 Bastonge Belgian Ale

50% brett b

25% brett l

25% brett c