Chris Winterhack
The start of Madison Craft Beer Week is marked each year with the release of Common Thread, and each year the style of beer is different. The 2016 Common Thread showcases the gose (goes-ah) style, which had been a relatively obscure sour beer until recent years. As the American craft beer movement has exploded, brewers have looked for historical brews and the challenges that comes with re-creating them. This year the gose was tackled by two dozen brewers as a collaborative project. You’ll find Common Thread in many Madison Craft Beer Week participating breweries, bars, taphouses and restaurants.
What is it? Common Thread is a beer made by a collaboration of Wisconsin brewers for Madison Craft Beer Week
Style: The gose is gaining in popularity among craft brewers. A decade ago it was hard to find even as a German import. There, the gose emerged as a regional style, along the river Gose, which flows through the German village of Goslar in Lower Saxony. It’s made with a high percentage of wheat malt, and is seasoned with coriander and salt. In Germany, some pubs even offer additional salt for licking, and at your request different types of salt, too. The gose is a cloudy, hazy straw- to medium-amber beer. The flavor can be sharp and tart with lemony or other citrus-like aromas and flavors. Depending upon the amount of coriander added, it may be spicy. The gose is light and crisp, and will range from 4.5% to 5.5% ABV. If you’re looking for an import, one you might watch for is from the Gasthaus and Gosbrauerei Bayrischer Bahnhof of Leipzig.
Background: This is the fifth time Wisconsin brewers have teamed up to make Common Thread. Each year a different style has been showcased for Madison Craft Beer Week:
The Wisconsin Brewing Company (WBC) served as host for this year’s brewing. Making a gose not only requires collaboration but also coordination across multiple brew days. It’s different from many other styles of beer because it really takes advantage of bacteria (in many beers, bacteria is a bad thing). The initial brew, which happened on March 17, involved making wort in the brew kettle, then stopping the process, allowing it to cool somewhat and adding in lactobacillus before sealing the brew kettle and allowing it to sit for several days while the bacteria soured the wort. “I never thought throwing bacteria into a beer would make something so light and refreshing and so good,” says Wisconsin Brewing’s Kirby Nelson. The Common Thread brewers came back together on March 19 to restart the brewing by heating the wort enough to kill the bacteria and finish making the wort. Coriander and salt was added at that point, and then the beer was allowed to ferment like other beers.
At one point, the brewers shared an email that reflected how they exchange ideas. It clearly showed the sense of collaboration that Common Thread is all about. It asked the group of brewers their ideas of malt types to use and who might provide them, how kettle souring works, and at one point calls went out for how to add salt to the beer (several brewers jumped in with ideas that included volunteering to offer salt from their brewpub). And, all the collegiality worked, resulting in a wonderful example of a gose.
Common Thread is considered a one-off batch, meaning when it’s gone it’s gone. Next year it will be a new beer in a different style. Proceeds from the sales of Common Thread go to the Wisconsin Brewers Guild for promotion and industry awareness programs.
Common Thread finishes around 4% ABV. The beer is being distributed throughout Madison for Craft Beer Week.
Also, Alt Brew (Greenview Brewing) produced a limited amount of a gluten-free version called Uncommon Thread that will be available at its brewery on April 30.
Tasting notes:
Aroma: Fruity tartness, with a hint of coriander (spicy, popcorn-like).
Appearance: Bright, very lightly hazy, yellow-golden. A thick, bubbly, off-white head.
Texture: Light- to medium-bodied, bubbly. There’s also a subtle softness overall.
Taste: A tart fruitiness and light citrus that is sharp and accented by its bubbly carbonation. Flavor has light fruity lemon-citrus tones.
Finish/Aftertaste: Hints of coriander salt amid the tartness.
Glassware: In most places you’ll be served this beer in a standard bar pint, which is a shame. It’s really a beer that deserves to be enjoyed in a glass with more fanfare, like a tulip glass or the slender and provocative weizen glass, just to show off how special it is.
Pairs well with: A nice match for salads, chicken and fish dishes. However, enjoy the first glass on its own to appreciate the complex tartness interspersed with spicy coriander and saltiness.
The Verdict: This is my favorite Common Thread yet. I really enjoy offbeat styles and especially those with history. I also appreciate the concept behind Common Thread’s yearly production, when so many brewers come together, set aside competition, and make a beer that becomes the epitome of what Madison Craft Beer Week is all about. Common Thread is a beer to be enjoyed, and admired, on many levels.
This is a unique, complex beer. It’s more tart than sour. Enjoy it as cold as possible and you’ll get the full tartness. As it warms you’ll sense more sourness. The coriander and salt add accent to the finish. The coriander, in particular, tends to lend a spicy and somewhat popcorn-like ending (salted popcorn, without gobs of butter). If there is such as person as a gose-purist, this version might strike him or her as a little assertive and big for the style. Scott Manning of Vintage, one of the collaborators in Common Thread, says he was all for tweaking the style to make it big and bold. This is certainly flavorful and an assertive take on the gose. It’s crisp, tart, very drinkable and distinctive. It’s in the genre of sours without being over the top, remaining very approachable for a wide range of adventuresome craft beer drinkers.
