Ommegang Rosetta, 5.6% ABV

Ommegang is most infamous for Three Philosophers, a boozy Belgian Quadrupel that’s been around for several years.  I’m a huge fan of Belgian concoctions, including Kriek’s and sours, so I jumped at the chance to try this one.  This brew, unlike most of their others, is actually brewed in Belgium, because apparently you can’t brew a sour cherry fruit beer here in the States; or at least in up-state New York.  Thus, this is coming out of Liefman’s brewery across the pond and they’ve been doing this kinda stuff for about 300 years, so it’s safe to say this brew is in the hands of professionals.

Rosetta I’d like to think of as a “starter Kriek” or “starter sour”.  It’s a mild sour Kriek, and something you can drink fairly quickly and even have a second or third afterward because it doesn’t twist your face into a pucker-knot.  On the Kriek side, you can taste the cherries prominently, but not to the level of say, Lindeman’s Kriek Lambic.  This is a lot closer to Tell Tale Tart and shares a lot of the same qualities,  but is smoother, less carbonated, and a bit less sour.   Overall, it’s an impressive brew that I’ll most likely make a repeat customer to my shopping basket.  Serve cold along with Crab Louie salad… no joke, it goes really well with it.

Dogfish Head Midas Touch, 9.0% ABV

And now for something completely different.  This must have been the thought in the heads of Dogfish Head’s brewmasters when they decided to pursue this stuff.  Apparently at a loss for new and interesting awesome ales to brew, the guys at Dogfish Head decided to jump in whatever Delorean, Tardis or random Time Machine they had on hand and ask the ancient Greeks what they were getting smashed on.  The problem came when they realized time-travel hadn’t been invented yet, so they went a different route, and went all-out.

They hired a biomolecular archaeologist… yes, that is a career path… it’s kinda along the same lines of forensic anthropologist but not as hot as Emily Deschanel; and got a hold of some 2700 year old goblets that were recovered from the tomb of King Midas (don’t ask how).  After a lengthy process that most likely involved much swabbing and feeding the results into multi-million dollar mass spectrographers for deconstruction, a formula for this magical brew was born.

If you’re following, this is a reconstruction of the stuff King Midas was getting smashed on 2700 years ago, and let me tell you, those Greek brewmeisters were pretty genius.  Midas Touch tastes unlike most any other ale you’ve ever had, but not in a bad way at all.  It tastes like a mead, crossed with an ale and maybe some wine added in for good measure.  It has a light beer flavor like a good hefeweizen, but fruit has been added like grape and papaya as well as a strong presence of honey and saffron like a good mead; and you can definitely taste the saffron.

It’s smooth and refreshing.  One bottle will have you going for another, and another… and that’s where the Greeks were most ingenious.  You can’t taste any alcohol in this stuff.  It’s like drinking a yummy, cold honey-saffron meady concoction that seems weird at first but goes down like iced tea on a hot day.  But this stuff is 9% ABV.  It’ll get you smashed before you know it for the very reason it goes down like iced tea on a hot day.  So in this, I hope Dogfish Head’s biomolecular archaeologist was paid his weight in gold, because this stuff is aptly named.  Have it served ice cold by your significant other dressed in a toga, along with tasty gyros and a copy of Homer’s Odyssey.