I was sitting around one night, grading mythology midterms and drinking a Mythos when the greatest idea of all time came to me: Ancient Beer Drinking Night!
It took me a few weeks to collect enough specimens, but at last I had an enviable (and very ancient) array:
Mythos (obviously ... the Hellenic Lager Beer)
Marathon (the Greek Lager Beer)
Black Sheep Ale (it had a picture of a black ram on it and Odysseus sacrifices one to Tiresias in Odyssey 11)
Aventinus (Mel spotted this one at Whole Foods, a wheat doppelbock from Germany. It made her think of the Aventine Hill ... I didn't have the heart to tell her that it was named for someone named Aventinus, whose picture was on the label.)
Kingfisher (Indian lager ... OR the metamorphic result of Alcyone in Ovid's Met. 11)
Optimator (Spaten from Munich ... nice)
Bard's Beer (made from sorghum) to be enjoyed with Harp Lager (to my fiendish delight)
Midas Touch (an ACTUAL ancient beer made by Dogfish from Delaware and based on "an ancient Turkish recipe using the original ingredients discovered in the tomb of King Midas." I have been looking for this one for almost a year after seeing it featured on the Discovery Channel and then two lonely bottles appeared in my Key Foods, two days shy of Ancient Beer Drinking Night. A miracle.)
Elysian, The Immortal IPA (This glory of mythology gone wrong hails from Seattle. The label is too awesome for words. A muscle-bound Zeus ... yes, Zeus, since he is clutching a lightning bolt and cuddling a cloud. And it's not like the Elysian Fields are in the Underworld or anything...)
It didn't take too much convincing to get sister, boyfriend, Mel and Coco together to drink it all. The costumes did take a little bit of convincing, however.
My sister, in her words, had a stroke of genius and put two ancient things together to form one innovative idea no one has ever thought of before. BEER AND TOGAS!
So we sheepishly donned bed sheets (I happen to be one badass toga-tie-er thanks to sixth grade Latin and too much time with Ecce Romani!) but were soon too drunk to care about dignity (a lot of those beers boasted alcohol contents of around 9%).
The Aventinus was absurdly delicious (perhaps something to do with it being un-pasteurized and un-filtered, ancient style), the Midas Touch was the star of the evening (it was something in between beer and champagne, such grapey, fizzy, honeyed goodness), the lagers all tasted like lagers and well, I don't remember much else.
References:
http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/year-round-brews/midas-touch.htm
