Thessing up in Greece

An hour from the North Macedonian border but in a different time zone lies Thessaloniki, Greece’s 2nd largest city. 320k people live in the municipality but over a million in the greater urban area.

It’s an ancient place that spent five centuries as part of the Ottoman Empire, becoming part of Greece in 1912. From the 16th century until the Nazi occupation it was the only Jewish-majority city in Europe. A popular tourist destination, it is situated in the north west corner of the Agean Sea.

What’s the beer scene like in Thessaloniki you ask? It’s an easy city to explore so walk this way. Our group of four arrived early on a Saturday evening, checked into our hotel and ten minutes later were sitting at Grook Taproom.

Here we got off to a good start with the Salonika Pale Ale from Sknipa Brewery the beer of choice. Others sampled and enjoyed included Chios Fresh and Boat by Boat, a persuasive IPA brewed by 3 Brothers. I think some might be dispensed via keykeg judging by the containers outside. There’s seating inside and out and you can order food from neighbouring outlets.

Self-service means at the bar

We soon discovered that Thessaloniki has several people who care greatly about making excellent beer. One of them is Anestis, a keen brewer, who we met in Beer o’Clock, a cosy bar run by his dad.

The beer list was inviting.

All the beers were local with the two from Paragon finding particular favour. There are close connections between the best beer ventures. After arranging to meet Anestis in A Hoppy Pub the following night, we headed to Utopia via Beer 24, a small bar with a single draught beer on this occasion and a much wider selection in the fridges. Behind the blue curtain lay 240 different canned beers. The draught was a refreshing Fury Weiss from Seven Seals.

We finished with a flourish at Utopia Taproom. A modern, brightly lit bar, we tanned Unhing’d for an hour going through the menu.

Sunday dawned and we had a three game schedule at Apollon Kato Scholariou, (super hospitable) Poseidon and finally Super League team Aris.

Apollon Kato Scholariou

At every level Greek football is passionate and committed, on and off the field. In fact fans had only just been allowed back into sports events after a 6 week ban, following a riot at a basketball match.

Poseidon

A quick cab back into town and we were in A Hoppy Pub, as was Anestis, who explained he was moving to Athens shortly to brew at Anastasiou. He had spent 4 years in Dublin and developed a taste for cask beer on trips to the UK.

The offering here is a carefully curated mix of Greek and international beers, including two from Denmark’s Amager Brewery. They were having a lambic weekend, bringing back fond memories of touring the Cantillon Brewery in Brussels and tasting their astonishing champagne-like spontaneously fermented beers.

After sampling several from the board I finished with a marvellously fresh Tilquin Gueze, an unfiltered and unpasteurised beer blended from differently aged lambics.

One of Anestis’ friends described a visit to Cafe Kulminator in Antwerp where you have to ring the bell to get in. The owner asks what you want and if you say beer you don’t gain access. If you say you want “something special” he lets you in. Tim Webb’s authoritative books on Belgium comments dryly that “lager and food are alien concepts” there. So that’s another one added to the never ending list.

There were a couple of other pubs we would have tried had time permitted, but can thoroughly recommend all those visited.

Good luck with your future venture Anestis.