An ancient burial chamber at Gordian in central Turkey supposedly houses the tomb of King Midas. Midas was not only a myth, but an actual king of the ancient kingdom of Phrygia around 700 B.C.E. His intact tomb seems to have been the location of the final funeral party for its permanent resident, and someone neglected to clean the 157 different drinking vessels left behind. Some of these vessels still had some residue on them. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology used some new methods of molecular archaeology and found that the residue was the remnant of an old drink with traces of barley, honey, and grapes; it was seemingly a mixture of beer, mead, and wine. Assuming this wasn't a mixed drink gone wrong, Dogfish Head Brewing did the only thing it knew how?made a beer from it.
Midas Touch Golden Elixir is one of Dogfish Head's year-round limited monthly releases and tries to best replicate the ancient cocktail in a modern beer. The ale is handcrafted using the basic recipe discovered in the Turkish tomb with the primary ingredients of barley and honey in the mash. Muscat grapes and saffron are added later in the brewing process. With a golden color (appropriate), it pours with little to no head.
Although distinctly an ale, it contains hints of mead and wine which give it a dark, complex flavor. With each sip you can taste a little more of each ingredient, whether it be the honey mead-like characteristics, the grapey white-wine feel, or the 9 percent alcohol-by-volume.
With its limited release times, Midas Touch Golden Elixir is a bit hard to find and a little pricey, but is a surprisingly drinkable beer. It's great for a small gathering or over a Brunswick-Apartment-cooked dinner because even its name makes it feel classy. It also makes a great conversation starter, whether you're an expert in beer, mythology, history, or the guy behind the counter at Uncle Tom's Market.
Two years after the discovery of the ancient drink from Gordian, molecular archaeologists at the University of Pennsylvania Museum found a new recipe. Their first try brought us back 2,700 years, while the new beer brings us back 9,000 years. Chateau Jiahu is the creation of the new efforts, which are much greater this time around. This beer grinds pre-gelatinized rice flakes with barley malt; then, in the kettle, brewers add honey, grapes, hawthorn fruit and chrysanthemum flowers. The liquid is finally combined with Sake yeast and fermented for a month before being transported to other tanks and eventually to bottles.
According to the Dogfish Head Web site, "preserved pottery jars found in the Neolithic village of Jiahu, in Henan province, Northern China, has revealed that a mixed fermented beverage of rice, honey and fruit was being produced that long ago?right around the same time that barley beer and grape wine were beginning to be made in the Middle East!"
With all the hype, how does it taste? The mixture of different flavors makes it taste less like an actual beer and more like a soda or a juice. The wheaty aspect is not as defined and the aftertaste of spices like ginger or the fruits come out, making the beer even sweeter and funkier than Midas Touch. It's good to have in small doses, so I recommend it, along with Midas Touch, for smaller get-togethers. Because of the difficulty of making the beer, it is available on a limited basis but can be found in 750 ml bottles (which is a size I almost always recommend) in certain beer stores.
Both ales really embody Dogfish Head's slogan that they make "off-centered ales for off-centered people," and if you're feeling a little eccentric one weekend, it's worth a trip to Uncle Tom's to pick up some of these brews from long ago.