REVIEW 56: MIDAS TOUCH

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Dogfish Head Brewery

STYLE:  Herbed/Spiced Beer

ABV:  9.0%

PURCHASE:  Draught (12-oz.), $7.00

SERVING:  Palm-branded snifter. Roughly 3/4" head from the tap on the first serving; second yielded over an inch. Average retention.

APPEARANCE:  Dark gold. Transparent. Shiny. Take your wife's or your girlfriend's jewelry and melt it all down, then pour it in a glass; that's what this looks like. Wispy white head. No real bubbling action to speak of.

BOUQUET:  One of the most challenging aromas I have personally come across. Filled with "I-thinks," if you get me. On the whole, it comes off as a white wine rather than as a beer. It's a tad malty and a bit yeasty, with essentially no hop aroma. In other words, there are very few actual beer notes. Methinks I smelt vanilla. Methinks I smelt pineapple. Methinks I smelt floral essences. Honey? Maybe. This is a riddle to me.

PALATE:  Not a very heavy body--particularly for beer of 9% alcohol. Carbonation is almost nonexistent initially; hold the sip, however, and it can rise sharply. Mouthfeel is viney and somewhat cidery; this goes down like a chardonnay. Light vanilla notes seem to line the mid-palate. Finish is dry and a bit buttery. Aftertaste has some sort of very, very subdued spice, but I can't make it out. Ginger?

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  Dogfish Head claims this is brewed from "ingredients found in 2,700-year-old drinking vessels from the tomb of King Midas." That's the king from ancient times who turned things into gold by touching them, in case you couldn't put that together.

At the end of the day, the story behind the beer is nice, but it's the taste, the final result, that matters. On that note, this passes easily.

But at the end of the day, there's something else that matters just as much: Does this actually taste like beer? In that regard, I have the same problem with this as I did with Not Your Father's Root Beer. In that case, I felt I was drinking a gimmick. Same here. Is this beer, or is it wine? Hey, I like wine, and I even like beer that has wine-like qualities. But I still need to feel like I'm drinking a beer. Apologies to the hipster and craft beer communities if I piss them off here.



GRADE:  F