Dogfish Brewery’s Head Midas Touch clone
Dogfish Head Midas Touch clone
(5 gallons/19 L, extract only)
OG = 1.078 FG = 1.010
IBU = 10 SRM = 6 ABV = 9%
Ingredients
6.6 lbs. (3 kg) Briess light malt extract syrup
3 lbs. (1.4 kg) honey (do not boil)
2 lbs. (0.91 kg) Alexander’s Muscat grape concentrate (do not boil)
0.5 teaspoon dry saffron (15 min.)
2.5 AAU Willamette hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g of 5% alpha acids)
2.5 AAU Willamette hops (15 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g of 5% alpha acids)
1 tsp. Irish moss (15 min.)
White Labs WLP500 (Monastery Ale) or Wyeast 3787 (Trappist Style High Gravity) yeast
O.75 cup of corn sugar (for priming)
Step by Step
Heat 2.5 gallons (9.5 L) of water to a boil, add malt extract off of heat and return to a boil once extract is thoroughly dissolved. Add Willamette hops and boil for 45 minutes. Add second round of Willamette hops, Irish moss, 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 (7.6 L) cool water in a sanitary fermenter, then add the Muscat concentrate and top off to 5 gallons (19 L). For a high-gravity fermentation such as this, be sure to aerate the wort and and to make a yeast starter. Allow the beer to cool to 68 ºF (20 °C), and ferment for 10 to 14 days. Bottle your beer, age for three to four weeks and enjoy!
All-grain option
Replace the light malt extract with 9.5 lbs. (4.3 kg) two-row pale malt. Mash your grains at 155 ºF (68 °C) for 45 minutes in 12 qts. (11 L) of strike water.
Written by Steve Bader
This beer was inspired by residue found in drinking vessels that are believed to be from the actual tomb of King Midas. 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.
