Tellicherry Lemonade Gose

Style: Gose
Brewery: A couple of Beer Barons
Origin: Sweden
Size: 33cl
Alcohol: 4.5%
Price: 30kr
Systembolaget: 32407

A Couple of Beer Barons is a nanobrewery founded in early 2024 by home brewer Karl-Linus Börjesson in Skarpnäck. They brew in operates in a shared facility also used by PKLK Bryggeri and Unibärsum. Lemon zest and tellicherry pepper are added along with Mandarina Bavaria hops. Gose was first brewed in Goslar in the 12th century, and continues to be a popular sour beer to this day. Salt (usually sea salt) is added to give a gose a slight brine note. When I stumbled across this beer I thought it would rather interesting, and I wanted to see how the lemon, pepper and salt characters of the beer interacted with each other. What I found was a hidden gem of a beer!

This was very light yellow in hue with a frothy head that slowly faded over time. The aroma was fascinating, with the black pepper and lemon blending well together. I’m always a bit apprehensive when brewers include spices in their beers as it can be hard hitting the right level without being overpowering or non-existent, but the pepper level was perfect. These both continued into the taste, and worked beautifully together. The lemon is surprisingly sweet, with the black pepper as a secondary note helping to make this delightfully complex. The salt note came through in the aftertaste, leaving the mouth bone dry.

This was a very nice sour with two major flavours that complimented each other extremely well. Even if it was quite light in fragrance and taste, it was extremely refreshing and perfectly balanced. I was surprised at just how good this was, and I could easily see myself enjoying a can of this in the near future paired with fish and chips. Delightful!