Beer blogger Adam Shugan is a store manager in Gainesville.

My beer-from-every-country trip has come to end.  It was a fun jaunt and I experienced myriad tastes, colors, and smells. Now I am going to go back to hunting for uncommon styles that breweries have been reviving. 

Today I have Sam Adams Verloren, which is part of a Small Batch Series of rare-beer-style bombers that they recently released.  It is a Gose and this is the first time I have seen or sampled this style. 

A Gose is a very old unfiltered German wheat beer born in Leipzig.  The main ingredient is 50 to 60% malted wheat with low hopping and the addition of coriander and salt.  The finished product is a turbid, dry, and spicy brew.  Many true German ones have a flavored and / or colored syrup added to it to balance out the addition of lactic acid in the boil. A horned owl graces the label of the bottle and it lists the addition of the coriander and the salt.

Appearance: serving it chilled in my Kronenbourg 1664 glass. A modest pour produces a massive rocky head that sticks to the sides of the glass.  It gives off a cloudy iced tea color with no residual bubbling.

Smell:  coriander, sea salt, orange zest, bread crust and wheat husk. It goes from spicy to bready to earthy. It is a rather pleasant aroma.

Taste: I do not really pick up the salt, but there is a twang of wheat and an almost rye-like spice. The coriander remains faint but there are some lemony undertones that stick to the back of the throat. Actually, the coriander has an oily feature that I detect when I lick my lips. As I continue to sip I get a hint of passion fruit. I am a bit disappointed in the lack of saltiness because I enjoy the taste of some good sea salt. I find I really enjoy the smell of coriander. I mentioned a few blogs back about Hitachino Nest White Ale from Japan, which has one of the best coriander smells I have experienced.

This turned out to be a very nice beer style.  I recommend it to anyone who likes Blue Moon, Shock Top, Barrel Trolley Belgian White or Hoegaarden. Even though these examples are Belgian Whites, they have pretty similar tastes. Look for Verloren and others in the Samuel Adams Small Batch series at your local ABC.