Tag Archives: gose

untitled art – florida weisse

i posted on my IG about this beer a while back but forgot to mention it here on the blog, so i’m writing a long overdue review and recent revelation.

my original sampling of this beer, after finding it at elio’s uptown – now that pelican craft brands is distributing untitled art‘s non-alcoholic brews around town to bars, restaurants and retail – was a bit off-putting. i knew it was a sour going in but wow, i didn’t realize just how sour! the first time i tried it i brought it out to sunset at the lakefront but stupidly drank it while eating a burrito from felipés – not a great pairing. i could appreciate it for what it was, a very tart and full-bodied sour NA beer, bursting with passionfruit purée and other mouth-puckering fruity goodness. but it wasn’t really my kinda beer. just a little too sour for me. i could appreciate the craft and the quality from untitled art, but had a hard time imagining myself wanting to drink more of them.

so the rest of the six pack has been sitting in my fridge ever since. (i did give one to my friend audra to taste, as she both loves beer and sour things and is into kombucha, so as i predicted, she enjoyed it!) but this morning i had what has turned out to be a brilliant idea: mix it with some ginger ale! i had some reed’s in the fridge, as i caught it on sale recently and do enjoy a little ginger ale from time to time (really the only soda-like drink i will consume), so i thought perhaps it would cut the sour a little and make the florida weisse more enjoyable to me.

and i was right! omg that is delicious! it adds just enough sweet to cut the sour a little, but not too much, and doesn’t really affect much else about the brew. i thought it would make it seem more soda-like but it really didn’t. it just made it easier for me to consume and enjoy. so now i know what to do with all the sours i end up trying and not liking! just add ginger ale! (reed’s ginger beer would probably work great too.)

for those of you who still drink alcohol, this would also probably be great with some vodka or other clear liquor in it. the idea of using an NA beer as a mixer is funny but i think for some of the fruity and sour NAs it would likely work. i won’t be trying it, but just a thought.

regardless, i’m thrilled because now it means i won’t waste the rest of these rather expensive craft NAs! thanks to untitled art for making a very unique non-alcoholic option that i’m sure sour-lovers will enjoy. i need to try their juicy IPA NA and their latest watermelon gose NA next.

brew dog – faux fox sharp raspberry

i have not historically been a super huge fan of sours or goses but in the spirit of trying to widen my palate and be adventurous, i’ve been trying a few here and there and actually liking some of them. i’d never had anything from the british-born brewery-of-the-people brew dog before, and usually you can tell from drinking one NA flavor from a brewery if it’s worth trying their other flavors – you can get a general sense of style. i’d seen a few good reviews of this one so i thought i’d give it a try. i figured, i like raspberries.

brew dog, while born in britain, is now an international beer conglomerate with breweries in both england and the US, with plans to expand in other countries. in addition, they have 29 brewdog bars serving their beers in the UK and 17 more around the world, with their flagship US outpost in columbus, ohio called the doghouse – a craft brewery/hotel combo complete with a craft beer museum. they have crowdfunded all of their capital so far, are planning an IPO soon, and they claim the entire company is carbon negative. so they seem pretty interesting on paper. i had high hopes.

well sadly, i’m disappointed. as you can see by the head on this, it’s pretty carbonated, with big fat bubbles and lots of them. it feels much more like a soda in your mouth than a beer. this to me tastes more like a beer-flavored seltzer. and while that is a thing now and lots of folks like that concept, it’s not what i was expecting and not what i personally enjoy.

it’s tart for sure – they weren’t kidding about it being a sharp raspberry. but it’s so thin and bubbly i can’t even really enjoy it. it’s got 29 calories and 4g of carbs, putting it in the “diet beer” category with brands like grüvi, partake and surreal. if you are a fan of bubbly waters and fruity sodas, you might like this. but i don’t. as pretty as it is in the glass – and it smells pretty great too – i’m not even gonna finish this one. sorry brew dog.

i have one of their coffee beers in the fridge from my recent sample order, so i guess i will give them another try another day. but this one is definitely not for me. maybe their leaded beers are better?

bravus oatmeal stout

on sampling NA beers

i’ve been at this non-alcoholic beer exploration for about four months now, with mixed results. i keep thinking i’ve found 5-star beer choices *for me* (cuz everyone’s taste buds are different), but then when i go back and try the same beer a few weeks later, i’m experiencing that beer in a totally different (and usually more unpleasant) way.

the latest example of this was last night with bravus brewing‘s oatmeal stout. i’d bought a bunch of singles at total wine in metairie a few weeks ago, so i could sample a bunch of different NA beers without having to buy full six packs in case i didn’t like it. and bravus’ oatmeal stout was one of them.

my experience drinking it then was a great one. i thought it tasted remarkably like a “real” stout, was full bodied, slightly sweet, and didn’t have any kind of weird aroma or aftertaste, as some NA brews do. “a little chocolatey, a hint of coffee and lots of creamy dark goodness,” i said in my IG review in the moment. i thought i’d found a winner!

i then spent the next several weeks trying to find more of it to purchase to have on hand in the fridge to drink, but total wine was out of stock and nowhere else in town had it. (i will make a whole ‘nother post about my retail adventures seeking out NA beer and talking to beer managers here in new orleans.) i contemplated purchasing online but bravus only gives free shipping if you buy a case and i wasn’t convinced i liked enough of their beers to mix and match a case; i really wanted to try their peanut butter stout but prefer to get a single to sample it before investing in a lot of it. and purchasing less than a case at a time means paying crazy shipping charges, making the beer very expensive. so i just kept holding off on the mail order, hoping the oatmeal stout would come back in stock at total wine.

yesterday was my lucky day – i drove out after work in the mid afternoon on a whim. they hadn’t restocked everything i wanted (wellbeing brews, aside from their IPA, were still out of stock and my total wine doesn’t carry big drop or ceria or any of the other new breweries i want to sample), but the bravus oatmeal and raspberry gose which i also had liked were back in stock. so i got 2 four-packs of the oatmeal stout and one of the gose, plus a few more random singles to test out.

i had one of the goses as soon as it cooled down in the fridge – it wasn’t ice cold like i like it but it wasn’t warm either; it was sufficiently cold for drinking. this time the aroma was more overpowering than i remembered and the extremeness of both the sweet and the tart were magnified, making me enjoy it a little less than i had before. it almost felt like i was drinking a kombucha! i still drank it and i think i will enjoy drinking the others in the right circumstances, but it’s not an everyday kinda brew.

later in the evening, after i’d had some food (though the taste of the gose was still on my palette a bit i have to admit), i cracked open one of the oatmeal stouts. i let it sit for a while to warm up and air out, and for my food to digest a bit more. but when i finally went in for a taste, the aroma really overwhelmed me! i’m not great at identifying smells with much specificity but it was a weird off-putting smell. someone in one of my facebook groups described it as sour or beets/vegetables, and i can’t say i disagree with that. it was definitely not what i was expecting – for an oatmeal stout i expect something more sweet or at least malty or grainy. and i couldn’t taste any of the chocolate or nuttiness i had previously with this beer. i kept drinking it thinking it would get better but it did not. the taste was tainted by the overpowering smell and i can’t say i enjoyed it all that much.

i will give it another shot perhaps with a clean palette and a glass that i don’t have to stick my nose down into to drink. (i was dog sitting so had to use the glassware on hand instead of a regular pint glass, which i usually use.) and maybe i just have to accept more inconsistency with batches of the non-alcoholic brews, because without alcohol as a preservative, i imagine it’s much harder to keep things consistent. i dunno. i’ll report back next time i try it. but i’m pretty bummed since i still have 7 of these to get through.

lesson learned, i guess.

bravus brewing – oatmeal stout and raspberry gose

copied over from my instagram:

more NA beer reviews! these are the fourth and fifth beers from my singles purchase last week at total wine. yesterday i had the bravus brewing oatmeal stout and it was delicious! a little chocolate-y, a hint of coffee and lots of creamy dark goodness. maybe a little sweeter than i anticipated but it went down very smoothly. will definitely buy some of these the next time i see a six pack.

and then just now i decided to try their raspberry gose. this is not a style of beer that i generally like though i’ve had a couple that were ok. but i’d read some really good reviews of this one so i gave it a shot and was delightfully surprised that i actually really loved it. it doesn’t really taste like a beer and not at all like the goses i have had, but it’s a really delicious refreshing drink. the sweetness and tartness of raspberries is balanced very well here. it’s likely to be a favorite in the summer months or anytime i want something fruity, crisp and light.

so two thumbs up for bravus brewing here! now if i can just get my hands on their peanut butter stout which I’ve read nothing but good things about i will be a happy woman. hopefully my total wine in metairie will start stocking it soon. going to have to make friends with their beer manager to make some suggestions.