I tasted Dogfish Head's Midas Touch a couple months ago, when the American Brewers Association came to São Paulo for a little road show of sorts.
Now of course, no one can possibly know how it compares to the original brew it attempted to reconstruct. I remember in particular a rather long ramble about how they were pretty sure but not quite that they were doing the right thing using the saffron as conservant.
It's well-worth giving it a try if you're lucky enough to live in the few places in the US where you can easily and reliably get a hold of it.
If you need to do the connoisseur thing, you'll say it resembles a ale, but trully it resembles nothing I have tasted enough to deserve a lable. Call it experimental, or indie, hell, it's Dogfish.
It's got honey and grape notes in it that make it almost taste like a weird crossover between beer and wine. Very fruity, would feel a little bit dry on the tongue if it weren't so perfumed. The saffron itself is amazing and comes as part of a second layer of scents once you take a sip of it.
It's a very drinkable beer (in spite of its hops), but maybe a bit too sweet and perfumed to stick to it for a whole night. It struck me as candidate for a really great companion to a home-made chicken and pequi risotto, mmm.
>It's well-worth giving it a try if you're lucky enough to live in the few places in the US where you can easily and reliably get a hold of it.
I live in the boonies and I've bought it a couple of times from the corner liquor store, so I don't think you have to be all that lucky to get a hold of it. They don't always have it in stock (is it seasonal? I'll have to ask about it next time I'm in there), but I'm not in the mood for it that often, either. I like it, but I have to be in a particular mood to really enjoy it. To me, it tasted almost like a cross between mead and beer.
It isn't quite a barley wine, at least it doesn't taste like any barley wine I've had before. It has some hints of mead, but the grape is what makes it different. If you live in the SF Bay area, you can definitely find this at either City Beer Store or Healthy Spirits.
I tried some at the Great American Beer Festival last fall (served by Sam himself!). It's worth trying simply because it challenges your palate, like all DFH products. Your description is pretty spot on, though I can't say it was uniquely good enough to seek out and purchase more of it.
The ingredients are barley, white Muscat grapes, honey and saffron, and their original formulation included thyme, but doesn't include it anymore. With grapes added and lacking hops, it's not "officially" a beer by BJCP style standards (a specialty beer maybe...it's technically a gruit).
It doesn't have any hops? Well I got that wrong in my description! :-) But maybe that's why I found it so easy to drink after all.
As for whether or not it's officially a beer, I think under Brazilian law a beer is a carbonated beverage made from the fermentation of starch-based produce (heresay—so don't quote me on that). So here it officially is.
(At any rate, it's funny to think that the oldest beer recipes may be "not officially beer.")
Well yeah, classification by law is different than how the industry itself describes stuff. There's lots of categorical beers that have to be sold as a malt liquor by law in certain states of the US due to high ABV percentages. For example, Oklahoma I think classifies beer at 4.2% ABV, and most styles of beer can approach 6% ABV and still stay within the guidelines, so basically every DFH product is legally "not beer" in that state.
There's also not an official industry group that I'm aware of that enforces and standardizes what breweries can call their product, the style guidelines are for judging purposes and consumer expectations. There's nothing stopping DFH from submitting Midas Touch in a "Pale Ale" or "Stout" category, but they'd surely lose and wouldn't get the increased publicity and recognition that would come with being best in class (although at this point, DFH has a big enough following and reputation that it matters less now than when they were smaller).
I share your opinion of Midas Touch. The DFH ancient brew reconstruction I prefer is Jaihu, based on residue on 9,000 year old Chinese pottery shards. Tastier, and with more primeval appeal.
