Happy Beer Day! Welcome back to this Sunday’s edition of The Beer List at The No Seatbelt Blog! The summer is in full swing, and it’s time to celebrate with a great seasonal brew from Victory, one of my favorite breweries. Let’s take a trip back to last October, when I attended Octoberfest Live in Philadelphia. It was there that I sampled Victory’s Kirsch Gose for the first time, and I was not only surprised that Victory’s stand at the venue had this beer out during that time of year, but I found this sour cherry beer to be so refreshing even on such a cold, windy day spent mostly in an open parking lot.

The Kirsch Gose is a great sour beer that gets away without having much complexity. Smells like cherries, tastes like cherries, with that latter being far more powerful. What you see is what you get here. This is a perfect beer to be enjoyed ice-cold, is fully of lively, visible carbonation, and at times even gives you that sting along your gumline when you eat something that is very sweet or tart.

Victory’s Kirsch Gose pours a pale red color, has a relatively thin head that dissipates quickly despite the carbonation level, and leaves plenty of lacing around the inside of your glass. Crisp and light-bodied, this gose is a great summer sipper, and will leave you refreshed, but with your mouth puckering.

For a bit of background on this style of beer, the gose is a sour wheat beer, the brewing of which has its origins in a certain area of Germany. Typically, the gose is characterized by a citrus tartness, which is given rise by a bacteria that acts during fermentation, as well as a heavy saltiness. Victory’s Kirsch Gose, however, is heavy on cherries, as opposed to citrus fruit, and has little to no noticeable salt to the taste. In keeping with the German theme, Victory even labels it a “bier” as opposed to a beer.

Overall, the Kirsch Gose is a fantastic warm-weather beer with a high drinkability factor. A low 4.7% alcohol-by-volume, a light body, good carbonation level and crisp character make it easy to have a few of these at your next party. This beer is available in the spring and early summer, and can be found in four-packs at liquor stores, and maybe even on tap in the Pennsylvania brewery’s distribution areas.

Have you had Victory’s Kirsch Gose? Leave a comment and let me know what you think, or recommend a gose that you like! You can find new installments of “The Beer List” right here at The No Seatbelt Blog on Sundays. Until next time, bottoms up!