Another quick post about my holiday (sorry!).

In an effort to do something more than laze in the sunshine in our small, quiet resort of Kriopigi in Halkidiki, we explored a little further around the Kassandra Peninsula on two evenings, once to the bustling resort of Hanioti, and the other a little less further, to the the last remaining plate smashing restaurant in our area.

Me and the mammoth Mythos

Now, the whole evening was lots of fun, although the plate smashing was reserved mostly for the children. The waiters were crazy, everyone danced on the tables and we finished by drowning (literally!) in Metaxa from the largest bottle of spirits I’ve ever seen sprayed over grown adults (thanks to a very enthusiastic proprietor and a bottle of liquor with a tap on it!)

But it wasn’t the scariest large drink of the night, as I found myself trying to defeat a gigantic 2L glass of my favourite Greek tipple, Mythos. I’m not quite sure I’d read the menu probably because I was not expecting this!!!

I’ve had beers larger than a pint before, most notably the formidables of Lourdes in France (1L glasses) and once, when I was much younger and much, much more immature, a yard of ‘snakebite and black’ topped with gin and other ill-mannered liquids on a night out with some rugby lads (I’ve never ever played rugby!).

But I wasn’t quite prepared for the embarassment of been the only person in the restaurant to be sitting at his table with a whopping 4 pint glass that was about as wide as my torso! The embarrassment didn’t last long, as other, older and more mature fellows soon followed, and received considerably more abuse from their better halves than I did (in fact you’ll see Sarah had quite a sip herself!)

But as I was loosening my collar and slowly, very slowly, draining my gargantuam thirst quencher, and with the furore and fuss around BrewDog’s Tokyo still ringing in my ears, I wondered about responsible drinking. Read the rest of this entry »

Got every twist of this bomb...except the splash!!

Last week I had a fantastic week in Greece, soaking up just enough sun so that I wouldn’t burn and just enough sea and sand that I wasn’t moaning about salt water or seaweed. But mostly I soaked up lots of relaxing hours reading, cooling off in the pool and nipping in the shade for an afternoon beer (oh and some messing around in the pool!)

We were at a small resort called Kriopigi, on Kassandra, the most densely inhabited penisula of Halkidiki, in Northen Greece. It was nice, not as slow moving or pretty as any of the places we’ve seen on other islands, but far from the hustle and bustle we desperately wanted to avoid. The hotel was nicer than it looked in the pictures online and on a quiet hill down to the beach, overlooking trees that sprawled down towards the sea.

Aegean Hotel, Kriopigi

We only had seven days and on a budget didn’t fancy many of the day trips, so we plumped for the ‘let’s just take it really slowly’ holiday, and it was just what I needed (to be honest I was a bit disappointed with the lack of accessible ‘culture’ so my SLR didn’t get too much action –  wished I’d had it for Rhodes Town last year!).

Days were long and the week felt longer than it was.  Within a few hours on the first morning we’d developed a holiday cycle: reading in the sun (I got through all of John Gribbin’s The Universe and 3/5 ths of The Grapes of Wrath!), dipping in the pool and heading for the shade for a beer and nibbles (the only bad thing about our hotel being that the pool bar didn’t serve olives, a cardinal sin in my eyes!). At the peak of the suns path, my equivalent of the Hellenic siesta involved an couple of bottles of Mythos on the balcony looking towards the hazy sea-sky horizon.

Mythos on holiday...the perfect siesta time beer?

Which brings me nicely onto beer and that legendary Mythos (or should I say mythical as the adverts do). Mythos (Μυθος in Greek) must benefit significantly from a lack of competition in the Greek beer market that just wouldn’t be possible in the UK. Yes, there are other beers, including Alfa (AΛΦA), a ‘traditional’ Greek lager brewed since 2000 by the Athenian Brewing company and a variety of imported beers, but none match the ubiquitous of Mythos in pubs, supermarkets and poolside bars.

It’s worth pointing out the Mythos isn’t the largest brewer, that title goes to the Athenian Brewing company, but I’ll hazard a guess and say that that is more to do with the fact that they also sell Amstel, Fischer, Duvel, Chimay, Murphy’s and Murphy’s Red and most of the other beers you come across in Greek Restaurants (the other notables bee you’ll find is Kaiser which is brewed by our friends at Mythos).

Read the rest of this entry »