Reinheitsgebot Archives | Short Brews

What’s a Gose?

Thomas Short — Thu, 25 May 2023 16:25:19 +0000

As we continue our journey to identify every style of beer, I realized that I hadn’t yet covered one of the most controversial beers – the gose. Of course, every beer is controversial to someone, and the gose has led to some pretty serious accusations (even though it’s been around for, oh, 500 years or so). Before we continue, two quick things: It’s pronounced goes-uh, like “there he GOES” and “UH, what?” Just mash them together I will try not to make too many gose puns along the way. The Gose Beer: a History If you’re just hearing about goses or heard about them in the past few years, it’s probably because they made a huge burst onto the craft scene a few years ago. Notable by their sour yet salty flavor, goses are a top-fermenting beer that relies heavily on malted wheat. ABVs range from the 4-5% range. The name gose, by the way, comes from Goslar, a town in Germany where the beer originated in the 16th century. Most recipes use cilantro, and if the water used isn’t salty enough, salt is added. Any sour notes you get from this subtle beast comes from the lactobacillius bacteria, sometimes known as lacto. Some of you might be thinking “I thought there were laws against such blasphemous beers in Germany.” There are! However, the gose has been recognized for its historical significance in the area, so it can be brewed despite it being “impure.” It was a popular style for a while, but then fell out of popularity. As they say, it comes and gose. Is Gose a Sour Beer? Is a gose officially a type of sour beer? Well, what is a sour beer? I haven’t written an article about it yet, but knowing the beer industry I already know the answer. Maybe a gose is a sour. Technically a gose is sour, but is it a sour? I’ll go ahead and say yes, just because it is sour. However, we have ourselves a square-rectangle situation here where a gose might be a sour, but that doesn’t mean all sours are goses. A gose needs to have salt and coriander added, while other sours might get their sourness from fruits, yeasts, and other tasty beer things. Where Does it Gose From Here? Where does it gose from here? Anyone with their ears to the ground or their mouths to a gose knows that the gose made a huge comeback in 2015. You can still find this salty delight at your local brewery that brews goses, but it isn’t as popular anymore and you’re much more likely to find haze bois than goses. So, if goses are waning, why bother writing about them? Because they’re tasty! Look, beer trends will ebb and flow, but that doesn’t mean that once a trend is over the beer is suddenly bad. If you’ve never tried a gose (or haven’t had one in a while), make a point to do it next time you see one on the menu. For those that don’t like sours, this is a great introductory beer that is sure to perk up your taste buds.

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Can Beer Be Made With Rice?

Thomas Short — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 19:00:56 +0000

In the United States, the types of grains we use in alcohols are pretty obvious – we have wheat growing everywhere, and barley isn’t particularly difficult to come by. But then again, so is rice. Rice isn’t commonly used in making Americanized alcohols, right? If we hold ourselves to the old German Beer Purity Law, then we can only make a beer with water, hops and barley (and later wheat). But we all know that most beer is made with more than four ingredients. So, if we substitute one of those ingredients can we make beer with rice? The answer is an easy yes, but here’s the thing: you probably drink rice beer pretty often. Rice Beer: An Abbreviated History If I were to ask you to name a rice-based beer off the top of your head, you’d probably say Sapporo. If you don’t know what Sapporo is then you would probably say nothing. Sapporo, for those who don’t know, is one of the most well-known Japanese beers. Japan, of course, is known for being a big producer of rice. As you might be able to imagine, Japanese brewers opted to use local ingredients because they were cheaper and more available. Such was the birth of many rice beers like Sapporo. This isn’t to say that Japan is the only country producing these types of beers. Rice is a cheap grain, so many brewers have hopped on the train. Unsurprisingly, you could find rice in Chinese beers pretty easily. Oh ya, and most beers in general. As American As Rice Beer Here are the facts: American beers use rice – and lots of it. Yup. If you drink Budweiser or Bud Light then you are part of the rice-beer movement. Congratulations! Wait a moment, Thomas – why are two of the most American beers using it instead of barley? Great question, and it has a very American answer: it’s a very cheap ingredient. When Anheuser-Busch is making beer, they really aren’t concerned with what’s going in the beer so much as how big their profit margins are. Facts are facts, and rice is cheaper than other grains. They aren’t the only brewers guilty of cutting costs – essentially all Coors, Miller and Keystone beers combine their barley with corn because corn is, you guessed it, cheap. Does this mean that rice beers are cheap? No, not at all. Brewers can obviously use whatever ingredients they would like. However, when a brewer is using rice as a substitute in order to make a cheaper product, then it sort of gets a bad rep in beer. So, I recommend switching away from your sneaky, cheap beers and trying an honest rice beer – you might be pleasantly surprised with how good a flavor the grain can produce.

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The 500-Year Old German Beer Purity Law – Reinheitsgebot

Thomas Short — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 15:30:56 +0000

Germans are known for their beer. It’s a delicious institution, and people travel from around the world to try their famous brews. You can thank the German Beer Purity Law (or not). Reinheitsgebot, also known as the German Beer Purity Law by those that are completely unable to pronounce the word, is a broad name for a law that dictates what can and cannot go into beer production. But what is this law, and why was it ever introduced? We’ll take a stroll down history lane to learn more about the law behind the world-famous beers. The Setting Is Bavaria, 1516 Bavaria is a region in the southeast of Germany, well known for its beer. The capital of the region is Munich, home to the world-famous Oktoberfest celebration. Beer runs through their veins in Bavaria. It is in this region that we find the most common iteration of Reinheitsgebot – a law that has phased in and out of German tradition for hundreds of years. On April 23, 1516, Bavaria passed the most famous version of the German Beer Purity Law. Under Bavaria’s new law, beer could only be made of water, hops and barley. That’s it. Makes for a pretty bland beer, sure – but remember, this is the home of some of the most famous beer in the world. Why make such a preposterous law? So their beer was pure as gold! Not really, though. The law was passed to try and keep the prices of wheat and rye down so people could afford to eat. Pretty considerate of the lawmakers. Unfortunately, this law made some beer styles go extinct – but made beer masters of the classic German biers. So, Germany Still Can’t Make Anything Other Than Pilsners? Germans can make whatever type of beer they want; that is, as long as they only use water, hops, barley and yeast (which was eventually allowed). Yes, this law still exists today, much to the chagrin of many beer brewers in Germany. Over the past hundred years or so, the lambics from Belgium and the craft brews from America have left many German brewers dreaming of a day where they can experiment with new beer recipes. You have to admit that beer can really only get so good when you only use four ingredients. Sure, these beers are kick ass and delicious, but sometimes you want a little bit of something else. You also have to wonder what the world of beer would look like without Reinheitsgebot. Would Germany have created new and incredible beers we never heard of? Would craft have taken off decades sooner? Or would craft beer have never become a trend due to incredible German imports? These are questions best pondered over a nice stein of weissbier.

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What’s In A Rye Beer?

Kevin Short — Tue, 27 Jun 2017 18:00:27 +0000

If you’re anything like me, the term “rye” makes you think of Reubens and that other bottle of Wild Turkey you’d never buy. Well, walk into a nice, hip brewery, and you may find yourself face-to-face with a rye ale, IPA, or anything, really. Rye beer is just a beer that uses rye in the malt. Why’s Rye So Uncommon? Although you may not have heard much about them, rye beer has a long history – long, but uneventful. Rye beer, once a common counterpart to the humble hefe in much of Germany, was actually outlawed in Bavaria about 500 years ago by the legendary German purity codes for beer (Reinheitsgebot). Only “purity” was not the motivation for passing the law. In reality, barley was seen as preferable for beer brewing only because it wasn’t acceptable for human consumption. You see, back in the 1500’s, Germany was still very susceptible to famine. Making sure that bread-worthy grains, like rye, were reserved for the bakers made living affordable for a lot of hungry Germans (fast-forward 500 years, they tout it as a “purity code”; guess sometimes you just have to save face). And You May Ask Yourself; Well, How Did Rye Get Here? Much like Megatron and Clay Aiken, the rye beer all but disappeared for hundreds of years. Lucky for us, a renegade German of a modern persuasion said: “to hell with the purity code!” and made himself some rye beer anyway. Owing to the craft beer explosion in the U.S., it’s now made all over the States and, like most things that come here from Europe (i.e. pizza), it’s been bastardized into something almost unrecognizable to the original. And also much, much better. Finally, Why Rye? Ryes can be pretty damn good, but why choose a rye when something more familiar is right there on the menu? Well, there’s plenty of reasons! Ryes are refreshing. They have less of the malty sweetness that barley beers tend to have. Consequently, they have much less of the malty sweetness that a wheat beer would offer. They taste a bit drier and snappier, albeit a bit less flavorful. It’s not an offensive flavor, either. It’s subtle to the point that you might not realize there’s something different about your beer. Taste it against a similar beer with barley or wheat malt and I’m sure you’ll be able to tell. Now, the difference between a RyePA and an IPA will be less pronounced than the difference between, say a maibock and a ryebock. This is because a mai/ryebock tends to derive more of its characteristic flavor from the malt, while an I/RyePA relies much more heavily on the hops for flavor. In any case, ryes are still pretty uncommon, so if you see one on the menu, it might be worth trying it just to take advantage of the opportunity. Remember, fortune favors the bold!

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