When I’m reading on holiday (and spouting verse to rival Simon Armitage) I’m never far from a little notebook where I can jot down words I’ve never come across before. That either make me sounds like a geek or perhaps slightly illiterate, but I read a lot of popular science and it can get quite…technical.

More often than not I can guess the meaning of words from their context and a dash of arbitrary knowledge. That’s because nothing is without context, nothing exists in a perfect vacuum, and that includes beer.

Luckily it only rained once on my recent holiday to Skopelos which allowed me 13 and a half days to lap up the piercing Grecian sunshine. At 36 degrees celsius to was hard not to break into sweats just lazing around with a book.

In such conditions you wouldn’t dream of picking up the same types of beers as you would at home. No matter how much a dry pale ale is perfect with the saltiness of olives or how much a German weisse would compliment the crispiness of a Greek salad, it’s just too hot for everything.

Everything that is except Mythos.

Without meaning to labour on my love for Mythos (I actually drank more Amstel on this holiday once the sun had gone down) Mythos rightly deserves it’s name and holds a special place in beer folklore. Mythos is a mythical creature that brings with it dismay and disappointment when drunk anywhere outside Hellenic border controls, yet chilled to within a inch of it’s life and deployed at critical moments of a boiling hot day on a Greek island, it’s  powers to revive might only be bettered by a cardiac defibrillator.

Admiring the distant olive groves and drying off after a dip in the swimming pool, Mythos is just…perfect. Nothing more, nothing less.

And in the context of the above weather conditions, Mythos is the best beer in the world. Period.

Mythos: the best beer in the world. The Hellenic one, at least.

On the last day our energetic shopkeeper asked me if I drank Mythos at home in England. She was delighted when I said it’s just not the same without the sun and the backdrop of Greece. “Everyone says that!” she exclaimed, wondering how such a thing could be true.

A few friends of mine who I know to be big beer lovers have so far been reluctant to write reviews. The main complaint is ‘I don’t know any technical stuff’ or ‘I know what I like but I find it really hard to describe why’. The point is this, I don’t really know a great deal of that technical stuff either. Sure, I’m working hard and learning all the time but, even when I know how long certain hops are roasted to give which flavours and the differing tastes given by barrels made of different types of wood, I hope that my reviews remain plainspoken and informative to non specialist drinkers.

I do not want to ‘dumb down’ my reviews but ultimately all I hope for is for the reader to be able to come away making an informed decision about which ale to have with their homemade burgers or the best range of lagers to put on for their summer BBQ. For that reason, when I am writing any review, I start by focussing on four basic areas. These are outlined below to help anyone who might be wanting to write a review for the blog but who doesn’t really know where to start.

Appearance – Pour the beer into a glass. What colour is it, what does it smell like, how fizzy is it and what sort of a head does it have?
Taste – I always find it helps to read the label or another review of the beer you’re tasting – not to copy but simply just to give you a bit of a starting point. Do you think it tastes like the description sounds, if not how does it differ?
Texture – How does the  beer go down? Is it fizzy, do you feel you would be bloated if you had more than a couple of pints of it or could you manage an all night sess?
Context – Where are you drinking it and what with? Are you drinking it with food or just on it’s own? If it’s with food does it go well with the chosen dish or is there something you’d prefer to be eating with it?

By covering these four areas I find I have the main body of a decent review, any technical stuff I can add in is a bonus and the details of of the evening/date/pub give soul (and most likely humour) to bring the thing to life.

Now I’ve given away the secret of how easy this is, please feel free to get sending reviews in for us to put up so that Fletch can sack me!