Would You Drink Dead Sea Salt Beer?

Gose is a salty-sour style of beer that's been brewed for more than a thousand years. The famously saline-rich Dead Sea, lowest land elevation on the planet, has been a natural marvel and travel destination for even longer. Bloomberg reports that Carakale Brewing Co., Jordan's first craft brewery, is combining the two for a unique beer that's getting a lot of attention: Dead Sea-rious.

Jordan is a Muslim country, which means alcohol consumption is discouraged and production is non-existent. Nevertheless, Carakale founder Yazan Karadsheh blazed a trail for Jordanian homebrew enthusiasts to follow, establishing a brand and breaking into local bars that typically only served the likes of Heineken.

But back to the salt featured in Carakale's Dead Sea-rious. If you wade into the Dead Sea, you'll suddenly become aware of every tiny scratch on your skin. If you float in the Dead Sea, the salt that gets in your eyes will make you wish you no longer had eyes. And if it takes you a minute to get the hang of floating in the Dead Sea and you get a little water in your mouth, you'll never wipe the taste of concentrated brine from your memory. That all said, Dead Sea salt does sound like a cool ingredient to include in craft beer. Many new goses include small-batch touches like Himalayan pink, Brittany gray, Hawaiian volcanic black or red or simply the brewery's own local sea salt. And if your local sea salt happens to come from a certain lifeless body of water, all the better for the bottle art!