Greece
Breweries on the map
Chios Beer (Mikrozythopoiia Chiou)
On Chios, the island of mastiha — that resin unique in the world, grown in the medieval villages of the south — Mikrozythopoiia Chiou brews Chios Beer, one of the Aegean's most respected fresh island beers: unpasteurised, distributed close to home and now one of the island's gourmet symbols alongside the Kampos mandarin. A sign of its technical standing: Athens' cult Strange Brew comes to produce part of its beers in these very kettles. Between the painted villages of Pyrgi, the Genoese fortress of the main town and the black-pebble beaches of Mavra Volia, Chios Beer keeps company with the island that gave Greece its great shipowners — and now a great beer.
Ikariotissa Brewery
Ikaria, a world Blue Zone where centenarians abound and where the panigyria — village feasts of flowing wine and spiralling dances — last until dawn, now has its own beer: Ikariotissa, brewed on the island of Icarus, who fell into the neighbouring sea according to myth. The island microbrewery makes fresh beers tuned to the Ikarian rhythm, that of an unhurried island where shops open when they open and toasts run long. Between the hot springs of Therma, the beaches of Seychelles and Nas and the perched villages of Raches, Ikariotissa drinks like a local longevity elixir — this one hopped.
Samos Brewery (Mikrozythopoiia Samou)
Samos is the island of Pythagoras, Epicurus and a sweet muscat once fought over by Europe's courts — but the wine island now has its microbrewery too: Mikrozythopoiia Samou makes fresh local beers that find their way onto the taverna tables of Pythagorio, the ancient port where Polycrates' fleet once moored, and of Kokkari and Vathy. Facing the Turkish coast just across the water, between the Eupalinos tunnel — an engineering marvel of the sixth century BC — the UNESCO-listed Heraion and the beaches of Tsamadou, Samian beer adds a hopped note to the most learned island of the eastern Aegean.
Sigri Brewery
Sigri, at Lesvos' far western tip, is a world's end: a fishing village facing the islet of Nissiopi, an Ottoman fortress, and the UNESCO-listed petrified forest — sequoias fossilised by eruptions twenty million years ago. In this geological setting brews the Sigri Brewery, the hopped voice of an island mostly famed for its ouzo, whose world capital Plomari claims to be. Its craft beers give the geopark's visitors, the birdwatchers of the Kalloni salt pans and the swimmers of the long Vatera beach a refreshing counterpoint to aniseed — proof that even the ouzo island keeps a place for hops.
No brewery for this initial.