Tasting Day: Palest Pale Ale #2 (Half-Hearted Midas Touch Clone)

Recipe and Brewday here.

This is the second beer from the Palest Pale Ale recipe. You can read the tasting notes of the first beer here. 

I spilt the Palest Pale Ale into two, and added the must of red grapes to the second batch. This was an attempt to clone Midas Touch from DogFish Head.

Before you jump at my throat via the comments below, this is a half-hearted attempt at cloning Midas Touch. Midas Touch, from DogFish, contains saffron and honey, neither of which was added to my beer. Only grape must was added. So this could qualify as a fruit beer too.

The slight hiss as I opened the bottle told me this was a well carbonated beer. It poured a golden yellow beer which was much, much darker than the original Palest Pale Ale. It was clear and that’s down to the 4 weeks of carbonation. A thick white head formed quickly and stayed awhile before dying down altogether, which made me wonder how well carbonated it was.

On the nose, I could smell a lot of acidic notes, something which reminded me of the grapes. I kept the hop additions to a minimum and therefore I couldn’t smell any hops.

I took a fairly long sip and the full force of an acidic liquid hit me. I will state that it wasn’t a strong acidic taste (not to the extent that I could call it metallic) but it was a feel good acidic note. Bitterness arrived very, very late and only ever so slightly. It had a fairly thin body and low malt profile. Despite this being an acidic beer, it wasn’t sour. And as I kept drinking, the acidic notes mellowed out. 

The effort that went into making this beer is worthy enough to warrant another similar beer, but I will stick to a small batch next time. This was my first taste of an acidic beer and it was an eye opener for me. It is a beer I enjoyed very much, but it is not an everyday beer.