Most goses are not made with lime or any citrus addition. But they are often made with lactic acid, which increases the sour dimension, as well as other additions, typically coriander, which provides light, flowery, citrus notes, and, most peculiarly, salt.

Salt would seem the polar opposite of refreshment. It’s beer, after all, that’s been marketed to quench the powerful thirst induced by consuming salty bar snacks. But the salt in gose simply adds a lightly briny, savory edge that I find captivating.

Gose is also low in alcohol, generally 4 to 5 percent, which means you can gulp rather than sip, a summer necessity.

Where has gose been all my life? For much of the 20th century, it survived in a state of suspended animation. As a product of the Saxony region of eastern Germany, the tradition of gose was slowly buried under the imperatives of two wars followed by Communist rule. But it never entirely died out, and when the Iron Curtain came down, gose was slowly resurrected.

Its proud history dates back nearly 1,000 years, to the Gose river and the town of Goslar, about 100 miles west of Leipzig. Legend suggests that the singular flavors of gose came from the mineral-rich Gose river waters, which were used for brewing.

Whether this is true I can’t say, but gose is nowadays brewed with salted water. By the turn of the 20th century, gose had become identified with the city of Leipzig, where it continued to be favored even as much of eastern Germany had instead turned to pilsner and other styles.