We have a wonderful brewery in Lewes, Delaware called Dogfish Head Brewery. They make Midas Touch, the beer that inspired my entrance into homebrewing, and I thought I might want to try to make this beer myself. I would appreciate any help you could offer towards supplying a clone recipe. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed in tasting this fine ancient ale.

Ty Ming
College Park, Maryland

This beer was inspired by residue found in drinking vessels that are believed to be from the actual tomb of King Midas. (For more information, see the University of Pennsylvania Museum Website at www.museum.upenn.edu/Midas/intro.html.) Some secrets of the beverage, dated to around 700 BC, were revealed by the new methods of molecular archaeology. The residues inside the vessels belonged to a “Phrygian cocktail,” which combined grape wine, barley beer and honey mead. Starting with the ancient chemical evidence, Dogfish Head Brewery “recreated” a marvelous golden elixir, truly touched by King Midas.

I spoke to Sam Calagione, brewer at Dogfish Head Brewery, about how they make this beer, and it is far from the normal beer. Midas Touch is a high-alcohol beverage with a relatively light body, the floral aroma of the Muscat grape juice and a hint of spiciness from saffron.

The brewery first mashes pale malt to get approximately 60 percent of the total sugars in this beer. They then boil the wort, adding another 20 percent of the sugars as honey at the end of the boil. Since this is a recreation of an ancient recipe, they use saffron in place of most of the hops.

Saffron is an expensive spice with a delicate aroma and a slight yellow color. Sam said they decided to add a very small amount of Willamette hops to this beer.

After the wort and honey is cooled, they add the final 20 percent of the fermentable sugars as a white Muscat grape juice. This brings the original gravity to about 1.075–1.080.

You can get more information about the brewery at www.dogfish.com.

Dogfish Head Midas Touch
(5 gallons, extract with grains and adjuncts)

OG = 1.078 FG = 1.010 IBUs = 10 ABV = 9.0%

Ingredients

• 3.3 lbs. Briess light malt extract syrup
• 1.5 lbs. Briess light dry malt extract
• 3 lbs. honey (do not boil)
• 2 lbs. Alexander’s Muscat grape concentrate (do not boil)
• 0.5 teaspoon dry saffron (boil 15 minutes)
• 2.5 AAU Willamette hops (bittering hop) (0.50 oz. of 5.0% alpha acid)
• 2.5 AAU Willamette hops (flavor hop) (0.50 oz. of 5.0% alpha acid)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss
• White Labs WLP500 (Trappist) or Wyeast 3787 (Trappist) yeast
• O.75 cup of corn sugar (for priming)

Step by step

Heat 2.5 gallons of water to a boil, add malt syrup and powder and return to a boil. Add Willamette hops, Irish moss and boil for 60 minutes. Add 0.50 ounce of Willamette hops and the Saffron for last 15 minutes of the boil. Add honey at the end of the boil after you turn off the heat. Let stand for 5 minutes to sanitize the honey.

Strain out the hops, add wort to two gallons cool water in a sanitary fermenter, then add the Muscat concentrate and top off to 5.5 gallons. Cool the wort to 80º F, aerate the beer and pitch your yeast. (For a high-gravity fermentation such as this, be sure to make a yeast starter.) Allow the beer to cool to 68–70º F, and ferment for 10 to 14 days. Bottle your beer, age for three to four weeks and enjoy!

All-grain option

Replace the light syrup with 6.0 lbs. two-row pale malt. Mash your grains at 155º F for 45 minutes. Lower the amount of bittering hops to 0.4 ounces.