It’s a beer… made with sea water. And it’s so good!
Unless you’re reading this tomorrow (or any other day other than today), today is National Beer Day. I drink too much. Too much, of course, is kind of a relative term–I’m not shitting my pants and puking on children every weekend, but I do drink pretty steadily throughout the week. Enough that it’s been brought up to me several times, but drinking makes you good at forgetting, so I forget about those conversations. Drink up, I say! (Not really. Drinking is bad for you, kids.)
That why, when the people over at a brewery called Libertine, a brewery out of Morro Bay, California, sent me an email (thanks, Jason!) asking if I wanted to try some, I was excited. Confused, but excited. Why, you ask, would a beer company reach out to a guy who writes about surfing? Because they make a beer with sea water. Also, there’s a beer called the Turpel Tripel, the label of which is plastered in wonderful little drawings of our very own honey-voiced Joe Turpel. So surfy!
Let it be known, however, that I drink like I read. If there are words, I’ll read it and (probably) enjoy it. From Archie to Hemingway, I like it. The same goes for drinking: if there’s booze, I’ll drink it and (probably) enjoy it. I am not the best person to send a finely crafted beer to if the sender is looking for someone who appreciates the craft. That’s Dylan’s job–the guy talks about beer like art critics talk about art. I just drink it. So a few weeks ago, after building a small deck, the realization that I was out of beer hit me in the face like a brick. No beer and a day full of sweat makes for a terrible evening unless you’re interested in rehydration, which is for hippies. Suddenly, though, I remembered the email from Jason and the box of beer that came shortly afterward. The beer was sitting in the cab of my truck and had been entirely forgotten about for months (sorry Jason!).
Inside the box was no ordinary beer. The bottles look more like wine bottles. Beneath a gold cap, they’re corked. Underneath that cork sits some of the best beers I’ve ever had–and I don’t say that lightly because I am Canadian and as far as I’m concerned, our beer (no, not Molson Canadian) is the best on earth. Suck it, Germany! The first one I tried was the Turpel Triple. Similar to a shandy, it tasted slightly cider-ish, only without that awful sweetness that most ciders tend to have. According to Libertine, it’s a Belgian Strong Ale… and I have no idea what that is. But if all Belgian Strong Ales taste like the Turpel Triple, consider me a fan.
Then, I had a glass of the sea-water beer. Pacific Ocean Blue Gose, they call it. As one might expect, it had a bit of saltiness to it–not enough to be gross, but just enough to be delicious. Very quickly, though, I realized that something was happening. I was drunk. Not a little tipsy, either. Sufficiently drunk enough to slur my words when I called my girlfriend later on. As it turns out, the Turpel Triple is much stronger than it tastes and gets you pretty drunk pretty quick.
Here’s the deal with the Gose. Gose, as all you beer connoisseurs know, comes from the Goslar region of Germany. The water there is briny and alkaline, so the beer from there tastes a little different. “To replicate this recipe properly one must add salt to the beer,” Libertine explains. “We figured, we’re surrounded by a source of salt water and play in it just about every day… the ocean.”
What better way to wash off the salt?
Also of note to surfers who like beer (which is probably every single one of you): they work with Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, sending $2 from every bottle sold to them. “It has been a lot of fun working with them; to date, we’ve been able to raise about $1,000 since we began the drive a couple months ago,” wrote Jason. “We will be doing another collaboration with SSC for their 40th anniversary in the spring. We’ll be taking the same beer base and adding foraged kelp and locally sourced blood oranges for a bright citrus version of the original Gose.”
Long story short: if you like beer, Libertine makes very, very good beer. They also have a beer club that you should join because clubs are great and so is beer. And what better day than today (unless you’re reading tomorrow or any other day other than today), National Beer Day?
Find out more about Libertine on their website and on Instagram
