Muntons Premium Gold Midas Touch Golden Ale
Premium Gold Midas Touch Golden Ale is Muntons attempt to attract the drinker of lagers and lighter ales. Golden ales seem to have become very popular over the past few years but to tell you the truth I hadn’t noticed until I started buying home brew kits. For the most part my experience with golden ales hasn’t been good but if I were to recommend one above the others, it would be this.
Midas Touch is actually a bit darker than some others, such as St Peter’s Golden Ale. In my opinion it is darker even than the picture on the carry box, which suggests it will appear like a European larger. Muntons state that Midas Touch has much of the flavour one would expect from a traditional English bitter and that much I will agree with. Midas Touch is a rich tasting, ale. Sweet fruity flavours, hints of zesty citrus but with a distinct hoppy back taste, a complex ale for sure. Amber colour, orange/brown, not dark, no red hints but definitely not yellow as I thought it would be. Since I started home brewing I have bought this kit on three occasions, so I think therein is a recommendation even if the name is preposterous.
On the downside, just as with all the Premium Gold ales, I experienced problems fermenting Midas Touch. Muntons say fermentation is complete when the specific gravity settles below 1014. So why, just as with all the Premium Gold range, does it stop abruptly at 1020? It’s such a shame. I know it isn’t anything to do with my brewing conditions. On every occasion I have brewed one of the Premium Gold ales I have had another ale such as a Woodfordes or St. Peter’s brewing along side. Why is it that all those ales behave themselves? It is particularly weird because those competing ales are also manufactured under licence by Muntons. How can they not get it right for themselves?