Demeter

Without Demeter, there would probably be no beer. As the all-encompassing mother goddess of the Greeks and guardian of fertility, it was she who gave humanity the most sacred of all gifts: Grain. She taught mortals how to use the plow and the art of agriculture. But her golden age was abruptly interrupted by an act of betrayal from within her own ranks.

When her own brother Hades abducted her beloved daughter Persephone (whose father was none other than Zeus) into the underworld, Demeter fell into deep mourning. In her wrathful pain, she withdrew the life force from the earth: No flower bloomed anymore, no tree bore fruit, and the fields withered. It was the first winter the world ever saw. Only when her daughter was allowed to return did nature awaken back to life.

The Beer

To honor the goddess of harvest and grain, we chose arguably the most fitting of all styles: A Golden Ale.

This beer shines in the glass as bright and golden as a wheat field in midsummer just before the harvest. It is a hymn to the grain that Demeter gifted us. But we didn’t just want to honor tradition; we also wanted to make the complex family history of the gods tangible in taste.

That’s why we refined this ale with a very special ingredient: We dry-hopped it – specifically with the hop variety “Zeus”. Thus, Persephone’s father symbolically reunites with the mother in the beer. This dry hopping gives the Golden Ale a wonderfully zesty citrus note, lending a divine freshness to the malty body.

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No flower will bloom anymore, no tree will bear fruit anymore, and no animal will reproduce until I get my beloved daughter Persephone back from my brother Hades.