Key West Lime Gose

Born at Radical Road Brewing Co., an East End Toronto suds shop, Key West Lime Gose is a member of the brewery’s Funk & Sour Series. I grabbed a 355mL can at the brewery and poured out a pale golden brew topped with a thin circlet of white suds. At just 3.8%, the beer is quaffable, or would be but for its tartness and salinity.

KWLG has a nose that twitches twixt briny and tart. It has a salty tang that balances a citrus swizzle. In short, it’s both sour and salty to the nose and through the flavour as well. For a low-alcohol brew, this one has intense flavours, kicking off with sea salt assertiveness and merging into lime acidity with just a sliver of sweetness that left me licking my lips.

The result is a shot of tequila short of a margarita. This beer is interesting and assertive. Despite its light weight, it certainly isn’t timid. The flavours pair pretty well, though I found the lime to have a slightly artificial vibe—there is no claim on the can that the lime flavour is natural, but using artificial stuff doesn’t mean it has to taste phony. All told, it was a pretty good gose with electric attitude.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Sublime Lime Witbier

Sublime Lime Witbier is a cheery little number from Toronto’s Saulter Street Brewery. It’s made with wheat, lime peal, and coriander, resulting in a 4.2% sessionable beer sold in 473mL cans. The beer itself is a slightly cloudy potion with a gold colour and a fluffy white head.

With a tangy aroma, Sublime is undoubtedly lime-focused. The flavour, too, is lime-oriented and a bit tart, supplemented with a quirky yeast profile and the slightly metallic clang of cilantro. The mouthfeel is a bit thin, perhaps, but not problematically so. 

A lovely low-alcohol summer afternoon beer, Sublime brings a welcome lime flavour into beer, without the cloying synthetic flavour that some of the macros have adopted.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Burlington Funk: Ceres Cucumber & Lime Gose

According to the copy on the 375mL bottle of Ceres Cucumber & Lime Gose, the name honours the Roman goddess of agriculture. Billed as a "soured light beer", Ceres comes from Burlington, Ontario's Nickel Brook Brewing Co. It contains a feather weight 4% alcohol and a preposterous 0 IBUs; however, despite those numbers, Ceres manages to pack in a significant amount of flavour.

Brewed with Himalayan sea salt, lime juice, cucumber juice, coriander, citra hops, and wheat, Ceres has a foolish amount of things going on. It has a nose that initially smacks of fresh cuke, but ends up encompassing some pretty substantial lime tartness as well. The flavour has the same elements, but reversed: the lime juice comes to the fore, while the crisp cuke-iness manifests as a a subtle presence. Ceres is tart, but not sour; briny but not salty. It can boast a genuinely unique flavour.

Billed as "thirst-quenching", I actually didn't find this gose to be all that refreshing. While the lime and cucumber juices lended a certain crispness, Ceres didn't strike me as particularly quaffable. At 4%, the beer is, on paper, easily sessioned; however, the powerful and unusual flavour combo would stall me at just one bottle. While this cucumber lime potion wasn't totally to my taste, it was innovative and odd, which made for a memorable sip. I might buy it again, but not for myself--this is a beer I'd enjoy running past someone else.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10.