The Lithuanian reaper glides through cold Baltic waters. Rich, lager-fermented darkness carrying dried fruit, roast, and chocolate. Deep malt warmth and the inevitability of winter.
In Lithuanian mythology, Giltinė is the goddess of death. She appears as a tall, thin woman with a scythe and a long tongue, and she kills by licking the face of the dying. Where other death figures keep their distance, Giltinė is intimate. Death, in the Lithuanian tradition, is not distant. It is close enough to taste.
Lithuania was the last pagan nation in Europe, not formally Christianized until the late fourteenth century. Its mythology preserved pre-Indo-European elements that vanished elsewhere. Giltinė belongs to this ancient stratum: a death goddess who is not opposed to life but completes it. She is the other side of Laima, the goddess of fate and fortune. Together they weave and cut the thread.
The Baltic Sea that borders Lithuania is itself a mythology. Cold, dark, and rich, it connects the living world to the amber-laden depths where the dead were believed to dwell. Baltic porters, brewed in this maritime tradition, are fermented cold like lagers but carry the depth of dark ales.
Giltinė is that Baltic darkness made drinkable. A 9.0% Baltic-Style Porter carrying dried fruit, roast, and chocolate through lager-fermented depths. Deep malt warmth and the inevitability of winter. Bronze medal at OBA, because even the judges could not look away.
