Days of the Beer, August 11

The beer for today is Brouwerij Van Steenberge, Sparta Pils.

On August 11, 480 BC, Leonidas I of Sparta died at the Battle of Thermopylae. You might remember, Leonidas was the main character in the movie 300... the guy who yelled:


"THIS IS SPARTA!!!"

The battle consisted of 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, and 6,000 other Greeks. They took on 80,000 Persians led by Xerxes I. At the end, all the Spartans and Thespians were dead, along with 2,300 of the other Greeks, but they killed 20,000 of the Persian Army.

As for the beer, Sparta Pils is a pilsener that is 5% ABV.

Sparta Pils is certainly one of the best examples of Pils around. It is never pasteurized and thus not dead, and it is only brewed with the best ingredients: barley and hops. A Pils beer is drunk cold, very cold, and is light in alcohol.

Due to not being pasteurized, the shelf life of this pils is only one year. Leonidas died at age 60.
Van Steenberge are the people who bring you Piraat and Gulden Draak. I'm not a fan of either of these beer. So in honor of the Leonidas, the 300 and "THIS IS SPARTA!!!" go have a Sparta Pils.