If I were a poet, I would say that this concoction was the color of a sunrise, at Acadia National Park in Maine on the Atlantic coast, with schooners off in the distance, and fishing boats headed out for the day, and so on and so forth.
But that ain’t me, son.
I’m a man. A thirsty man, who enjoys a beer and a sandwich.
In this case, the location of the sandwich was the very recently opened Syracuse Press Room Pub, off of Clinton Square in Syracuse. This is a very hip new restaurant and tavern filled with Syracuse themes bric-a-brac and cool tables made out of cut down portions of actual basketball flooring. And some tasty vittles. In this case, the special of the day was a chicken teriyaki sandwich, topped with booze soaked salsa (see a theme yet?) and a side of their fantastically delightful homemade potato chips.
If you’re not getting the chips at this place, well, that means you blew it. YOU BLEW IT!
So, back to the Press Room. Their web site does tout the fine list of New York breweries featured among their beer selections, including “Ommegang, Brooklyn, Middle Ages, Browns, Ithaca, LIC, Single-Cut, Thin-Man, Rohrbach, Common Roots, Lake Placid, Empire, 1911, Critz Farms, Southern Tier” and promising that the list goes on from there.
(Which explains why my beer was served in a Southern Tier pint glass, despite not being a Southern Tier product.)
Today’s beverage is a Brown’s Brewing Company product known as the Guava Gose.
A gose, for those of you not in the “knows,” is a specific kind of beer. And I had to look so that I could say something more sophisticated than “goses are so good!” Which doesn’t really help anyone.
According to the Wikipedia, a gose is “a top-fermented beer that originated in Goslar, Germany. It is brewed with at least 50% of the grain bill being malted wheat. Dominant flavours in gose include a lemon sourness, a herbal characteristic, and a strong saltiness (the result of either local water sources or added salt). Gose beers typically do not have prominent hop bitterness, flavours, or aroma. The beers typically have a moderate alcohol content of 4 to 5% ABV.”
This particular gose is brought to you by Brown’s Brewing Company. They are based out of Troy, New York, near Albany, and I have been to their taproom. I attended a wedding and reception there a few years ago, and in fact am in the proud possession of a Brown’s Brewing Company bottle opener that has served me well.
Anyhoo, the Brown’s folks have so many beers that their web site gives only very short shrift to this particular brew.
“Tart German wheat beer brewed with sea salt, coriander, and almost 400 pounds of guava puree! 4.75% ABV, 0 IBU”
That’s all you’re getting out of the Brown’s on this. So, allow me to supplement that with details.
This beer is tremendous! It is tart and sweet at the same time. It’s fruity as all get out and it’s got a wonderful aroma. I would best describe it as the by-product of a love affair between a mermaid and a fat clown that was taking a break from scaring little kids at birthday parties. Like John Wayne Gacy, if he hadn’t killed all of those people.
I’ve yet to find this one in the stores, which keeps me going back to the Press Room to enjoy them, and as long as it’s on tap there at a reasonable $6 per pint, I shall continue to return and partake.
I couldn’t even find an image of the product itself, but I think this one, shown in a Brown’s glass, is pretty close.
So head over to the Press Room, or, if you’re in the Troy area, to the brewing room, and suck down one of these bad boys. Or, you know, start stomping on the guavas yourself (writer’s note: stomping on a guava may or may not produce a delicious gose beer, when combined with several other steps and several weeks of waiting. I cannot confirm or deny this).