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The context of a perfect beer
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August 24th, 2010Beer Reviews, Comment, Lagers
…Or Why Mythos Is The Best Beer In The World But Only In A Very Specific Situation And With The Correct Weather Conditions
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.
Tags: Context, greece, Mediterranean, mythosOn 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.
5 responses to “The context of a perfect beer” 
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Good beer is where you find it. Good beer is the result of place and company as well as fermentation. (Quote)
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FletchtheMonkey Reply:
August 25th, 2010 at 9:52 pm@Reluctant Scooper, It’s about the moment, the environment, the reason. It’s so much more than ingredients. (Quote)
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What I particularly like about drinking when it’s hot is that feeling that it’s not actually getting you drunk, you’re just keeping yourself rehydrated. Generally it lasts until you stand up.
I’ve got particularly golden memories of Crucial Brew on a hot day, which I talked about here. (Quote)
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FletchtheMonkey August 26th, 2010 at 13:47
@Ben And conversely in the winter the perfect beer changes of course, as it does with food, with company, with mood. That’s why we should campaign for beer diversity!
@Phil I love moments like the Weissbeer in Barcelona you mention on your blog. Those beers are always the best regardless of technical considerations: emotive, contextual, a snap shot of live being lived. I clearly remember my ‘good beer’ epiphany in New York (Me and Brooklyn Beer), call it a road to Damascus moment. EIPA is forever my favourite beer because of that time of my live. (Quote)
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The author
Name: Mark
Web Site: http://twitter.com/fletchthemonkey
Bio: Mark is better known as @fletchthemonkey and started writing about beer in 2009. Mark is editor of Real Ale Reviews and blogs at beeralewhatever.co.uk. When not content with spending all day on the internet working for a digital marketing agency, Mark waxes lyrical at digitalmediamonkey.co.uk and types up match reports for Leeds Guide magazine.
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Reluctant Scooper August 25th, 2010 at 21:46