The Laziest Post ever?

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The Dynamic Duo

Pivovar Náchod, makers of the Primátor brand, have one of the most diverse ranges of beer in the Czech Republic. As well as the standard lagers made by practically every Czech brewer, they also make a weizen, an English Pale Ale, a stout and a couple of big hitters – Exklusiv, Rytířský and Double, at 21° and 24° respectively. They also made this year's World's Best Lager - the 16° Exklusiv.With all the strength of a doppelbock, the 21° Rytířský is definitely not a session beer – unless of course you want your session to end early that is – it is 9% ABV! As you can see from the picture this is again a dark golden beer with a huge white head – and was supremely poured by Mrs Velkyal. The nose is quite delicate, with all the hallmark notes of Saaz hops. In the mouth however it is rather sweet and the mouthfeel distinctly syrupy although the slight bitterness comes through in the end, only to be smothered at the last. I found this an easier beer to drink than the Strahov Christmas Special, but only just.

The bully of the school yard however is the 10.5%ABV Double, a strong dark lager – which confusingly is called a porter by the Slovak labelling and a “speciální tmavé pivo” or “special dark beer”. It is certainly a very dark beer, deep ruby with a light coffee head that fades rather quickly. As expected the nose is grassy from the Saaz hops, as well as the slightest hint of caramelized bananas. Taste wise there is a distinctly burnt caramel flavour, with touches of bitter coffee and cocoa, the alcohol leaving a tingling sensation on my lips. Unlike the Rytířský, the Double doesn’t feel syrupy, despite the fact that it is very sweet. I imagine that this would pair up very nicely with the excellent mature farmhouse cheddar that the Cheesey shop sells.

I think I am coming to the conclusion that as much as I like flavourful beers, I am not a big fan of strongly alcoholic beers – especially when they only come in a half litre bottle. I never thought I would be saying this, but the Rytířský and the Double would be better in a 300ml bottle. Powerful and full of flavour, these are nice beers – but certainly not for regular sessions.

Time Travel

I have to say that I rather like being able to write something and then schedule it, in full assurance that it will get posted and I can focus on other things - such as trawling my way through my Christmas present - if O'Hanlon's Port Stout can't make the Queen's Speech worth listening to then I guess I will move on the Durham Temptation, and so on until something good happens - like the opening of the pub at the end of the road.

Being the only one of my family without children I will no doubt get to vanish for an hour or so of sanity - perhaps dragging my brothers and father with me.

Hope you are all having a lovely Christmas - and if Christmas is not part of your culture then I hope you are having a fantastic day anyway!

Slainte!

The Fuggled Review of the Year - Beer of the Year

So there we have it, my overview of the year. I have left out many excellent beers, many beers which I hope to try again before too long. That list includes many new beers to me, such as:

• Clotworthy Dobbin
• Železná Ruda 13 tmávé
• Wychwood Hobgoblin

And of course a number of favourites that I will buy regularly:

• Bishop’s Finger
• Budvar, both light and dark
• Svijany in all its forms

To choose my favourite beer from 2008 is an exceptionally difficult task, and I do so in full awareness that I am being entirely subjective. My beer of the year is thus the one that has given me the most pleasure, the most instruction in all that a beer can beer and the most inspiration as to what I can do with my own beer making. As such, my beer of the year is more than just a drink of the year, it is also a reflection on the brewery which has in many ways defined my beer drinking in the last year.

Therefore my beer of the year, and by extension my brewery of the year is:

1. Pivovar Varnsdorf for their Kocour V3.

Flying the face of your culture is always fraught with danger and laden with potential booby traps. Flying the face of Czech brewing culture and tradition is like voting Conservative in Scotland. Well done the guys (and most especially the breweress) for being true to their stated aim of not being boring.

May you prosper in 2009, and far beyond.

The Fuggled Review of the Year - Rauchbier

I had my first ever smoked beer this year, the classic Schlenkerla Märzen from Bamberg – it was a revelation. I had never come across smoked beer before, although with a bit of thought and research I realized that many beers prior to the invention of coke, the fuel not the soft drink, would have had a smoky flavour to them.

The discovery of smoked beers had got me thinking about the kinds of beers I will make, and my first beer I plan to make in 2009 is currently a smoked mild – admittedly using a mild kit and chucking in a mini-mash of smoked malt. It has also got me thinking about the different flavours that would be imparted by using different fuels, such as oak and more especially peat – I wonder if a stout made from peat smoked malt would more closely resemble the early porters and stouts which so took Ireland by storm, perhaps though I am simply indulging my love of whiskey and wanting the same peat flavours in my beer?

The shortlist for smoked beer of the year in the Fuggled world is as follows:

• Purkmistr Rauchbier
• Schlenkerla Rauchbier Weizen
• Kocour V3

The Purkmistr Rauchbier was one of my favourite beers at the Slunce ve Skle festival back in September, not as in your face as the Schlenkerla Märzen but still with a distinct smokiness and with the excellent drinkability of all the Purkmistr beers I have tried.

From the Schlenkerla stable the Rauchweizen is the best, again it is not as in your face and the Märzen but the sublte smokiness coupled with the classic banana and cloves of a wheat beer make for something eminently intriguing.

Kocour take the credit for V3, although it was a collaborative beer, aged in Tokaj barrels from Hungary. Full bodied and with winey elements mixed in with the taste of sausages – this was a beer which tick boxes on almost every part of the tongue.

Of the three, one stands above the others in terms of originality and vision, and on those bases, as well as just being a damned fine beer the winner is:

1. Kocour V3

This is an annual special – unfortunately the next time it is made I will be living the US, and unless I can find some way of getting it to South Carolina I will spend many a day pining after it.

The Fuggled Review of the Year - Wheat Beers

There was once a time when I didn’t drink wheat beer at all. I still remember the day when sitting with one of my best friends in a pub in Birmingham and he suggested I try a wheat beer. I found it so foul that I was tempted to pour it into the canal – for those familiar with Brum (probably the only major English city I would ever live in again) we were sat in a pub just behind Brindley Place waiting for a concert by The Mutton Birds, supported by a local band called Mudskipper. I had just got my degree in theology, my friend was about to take up a post as a youth pastor in Lancashire – it was the last time we saw each other, and the last beer he had (apparently).

Fast forward ten years to Pivovarský klub in Prague, sitting with a friend of mine who spent a lot of his life in the West Midlands, and he suggested to me that I should try Schöfferhofer – and my mind was blown away. I loved this stuff, and thought to myself, where has wheat beer been all my beer drinking life?

Thus this year has been one not only of discovering great ales and lagers, but also learning to appreciate wheat beer. I freely admit that still the wheats I like are from Germany and the Czech Republic, I am yet to find a Belgian wit that I like – given that it took me ten years to appreciate it at all, give me a break ok?

The three for my shortlist are:

• Schöfferhofer Hefeweizen
• Primátor Weizen
• Memminger Weizen

Schöfferhofer makes the shortlist simply because it was my Damascus moment, when I discovered wheat beer as something I wanted to drink and is still the standard by which I judge weissbier – whether that be right or wrong, the fact remains it was the first I liked.

Primátor make lovely beers in general and to my mind their weizen is the best in their range, better even than their stout and English Pale Ale. Admittedly it is more consistently better from the bottle than on tap.

I have only ever had two pints of Memminger, both of them in Berlin in May – for breakfast! A very nice, refreshing beer that I could imagine spending a hot summer’s day on Alexanderplatz drinking, preferably brought by a buxom German serving wench (thank goodness Mrs Velkyal knows what I am, and what, I like).

In the wheat beer stakes there is a clear winner, not just because I happen to love this beer but also because everyone I have introduced to it so far has raved about it too, including my mate that gave me my first ever Schöfferhofer, therefore the winner is:

1. Primátor Weizen

Find it, drink it, enjoy it.

The Fuggled Review of the Year - Stouts and Porters

Dark beers have played a major role in my drinking this year, in particular stouts and porters, both from the Czech Republic and from further afield, such as the UK, Ireland, Norway and Germany. I have learnt about the differences between a Baltic and a London porter, and about the different styles of stout, whether dry, sweet or imperial.

When I started my, legal, drinking life, stout was very much my ale of choice. I remember ordering my first ever pint in the Dark Island hotel back at home, it was a Guinness - a youthful homage to my eldest brother. When studying in Birmingham I would wander off for pints of Murphy's and Beamish.

When I came back from Oxford a few months ago, many of the beers I brought with me were stouts and porters of various types, and the only beers I managed to bring from Ireland were from the Carlow Brewing Company, makers of O'Hara's stout.

My shortlist of stouts and porters is as follows:

• O'Hara's Stout - bottled that is
• Wrasslers XXXX
• BrewDog Paradox Smokehead

O'Hara's on draught was good, from the bottle it was great - and still I have a bottle in the cellar waiting to be drunk when the right day arrives.

Wrasslers XXXX was, they say, the choice of stout for Irish hero Michael Collins - a man evidently of exceptional taste in beer. Smooth, full bodied and yet easy to drink, if I lived in Ireland it would be my beer of choice.

What can be said about BrewDog's sublime Paradox series of imperial stouts aged in whisky casks, very simply - where can I buy more?

There is a clear winner here, and it is simply because within one drink the makers have managed to combine two of my passions, as such my Stout/Porter of 2008 is:

1. BrewDog Paradox Smokehead

Whisky and stout in a single glass - sheer Genius.

The Fuggled Review of the Year - Pale Ales and Bitters

After years of drinking lager, it has been a pleasure to once again drink ale on a regular basis. Despite the fact that I have had some very nice ales here in the Czech Republic, most of the pale ales and bitters I have enjoyed in the last 12 months have been an integral part of my trips to the UK and Ireland.

I have enjoyed re-acquainting myself with old favourites as well as discovering stuff from breweries I had never heard of before. However, it was the newcomers that made my short list of 3 for this category (and believe me I agonized over leaving some of my favourite beers out). The three contenders for my pale ale/bitter of 2008 are:

• Kocour IPA
• Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
• Galway Hooker

All of the pale ales I have tried from Pivovar Varnsdorf have been excellent, whether the English Pale Ale, the American style Pale Ale or the India Pale Ale, which I first had at the Slunce ve Skle festival in Plzeň. The IPA gets the nod over the others because of the wonderful fresh citrus flavours and the fact that it is an endlessly wonderful and easy drinking ale.

I had the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale whilst in Galway last month, having heard from many people that it is the standard against which many pale ales are judged, and it is a beautifully crafted beer – one which when I am living in the States will be as permanent a fixture in my cellar as possible.

Galway Hooker was a beer that was very close to the top of my list for trying during the trip to Ireland. Again a very crisp and refreshing beer, and one which I heartily wish was available in bottles so that it could be enjoyed by more people than those very lucky souls in Galway and the few towns in Ireland where it is available on tap.

Again a very, very difficult choice, but my pale ale/bitter of the year is:

1. Galway Hooker

Worth jumping on a plane to Ireland for.

The Fuggled Review of the Year - Amber and Dark Lagers

There is a Czech tradition that if a woman drinks dark lager then she will have big breasts, though there is nothing said about getting a big gut as well, so we can only assume that dark beer is good for you!

In all seriousness though, there was a time when I didn't particularly like the darker lagers on offer in the Czech Republic - however this has changed in recent years, partly I think as a natural progression from when I was fed up with the Czech lagers I was drinking at the time, and thus looked for something different.

The reason I have put amber and dark lagers under the same post is that I drink proportionately less of them than other lagers here, so a post each would be stretching things practically to breaking point, despite the fact that this has given me something of a headache when it comes to choosing my top three of the year, which are

• Strahov Autumn Dark Special
• Hukvaldy 14°
• Chodovar Skalní ležák

The Strahov Autumn Special was a magnificent beer, rich and flavourful and worth every drop of the two or three I enjoyed in the late autumn sun whilst looking at Strahov Monastery, one of my favourite buildings in Prague.

Hukvaldy 14° was one of those beautiful happy moments when you say, I'll just have the one, and end up having a couple over lunch and savouring every drop, telling all your colleagues that they should get to the pub that very day and try it - then discovering they took your advice and were raving about it too!

The Chodovar brewery makes some of my favourite beers, and their Skalní ležák is quite simply a lovely beer which never fails to satisfy. When PK had it on tap earlier this year I was in heaven.

This is such a difficult choice, but in the immortal words of Connor MacLeod, there can be only one:

1. Chodovar Skalní ležák

Chodovar wins here for its consistency as one of my favourite amber lagers and the fact that I have used it in my various beer cooking experiment successfully.

The Fuggled Review of the Year - Pale Lagers

Yes there are still a couple of weeks of drinking time left this year, but as I will be in France and the UK in the coming weeks I am not sure how much posting I will get to do after this week.

As you would expect, living in the country where lager is king, I drink quite a lot of it. Once upon a time I drank, and enjoyed, the mega-brands - Gambrinus, Staropramen and Kozel. Those days have been consigned to history for various abominations; diluting the beer after fermentation, using corn syrup as an adjunct, just generally trashing one of my favourite beers.

This year though I have discovered a wealth of pale lagers, of varying strengths, which I enjoy and which restored my once flagging faith in pale lager. My top three though are:

• Kout na Šumavě 10º
• Purkmistr 12º
• Primátor 12º

The Kout is so well made, and for a 10º lager it is bursting with flavour, and the only pub in Prague with it on tap is a ten minute jaunt from my flat, and it costs an insane 20kč for a half litre (that's $1/€0.80/£0.70 at current exchange rates).

Purkmistr is worth the trip to Plzeň alone, and I am probably being controversial here but it is the only light lager from that hallowed city which is actually worth drinking (cue comments about the unfiltered and unpasteurised Pilsner Urquell available at the brewery - that doesn't count as it is not commercially available as far as I am aware).

Yes I have a soft spot for Primátor, and their 12º is a very nice and drinkable lager, and again very cheap in the Billa near my office.

It is difficult to pick just one to be the Fuggled Pale Lager of the Year - a prize unburdened with history and monetary value - but the award goes to:

1. Kout na Šumavě

Simply the best lager in the Czech Republic.

Beer Hero of the Week

This week has been rather quiet, other than a few solitary beers at PK on Tuesday - tonight however is our team shindig at work. Having said that, I have a blinding headache at the moment, so hopefully the ibuprofen will kick in soon, otherwise I will have to drink slower than one would like.

Anyway, to the this week's Beer Hero. This week's hero is an unknown soldier, a warrior in the cause of bringing me good beer so that my infinitely extensible waistline can yo-yo its way through the yuletide fun. Ladies and gentleman, I give you this week's Beer Hero of the week:

Whoever it is my brother persuades to pick up some beer from Lovibonds beer in Henley-on-Thames!

I thank you!

Oh bum!

By some stroke of infinite genius, I fly to France on the day that the Christmas Beer Market starts here in Prague - that's next Saturday.

There is more information over on Evan's blog, for those that can't read Czech.

For those that can here is an article with some of the foreign brewers taking part:

• Inveralmond Brewery
• BrewDog
• Schneider Weisse
• Nørrebro Bryghus

So if you are in Prague, get along to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel and try some wonderful beers.

Rev ale ation

Seeing as though last night was Mrs Velkyal's school Christmas soiree, I nipped along to Pivovarský klub to try a couple of interesting beers on tap. Luckily when I arrived there was a space at the bar, the downstairs area being used for one of PK's club nights.


I had checked PK's website in the afternoon, and saw that they had an American IPA but it wasn't stated who made it and I remember Pivovarský dům once made a Double IPA which I hadn't really enjoyed that much. When I heard that it was from Kocour, there was no question that I was going to get along and have a couple. And what a lovely beer it is, a huge nose of citrus, flowers and grass and a big refreshing kick of bitterness which I imagine would cut through the stogiest of foods with consummate ease, all of this backed up with a gentle sweetness and a long dry finish. Fabulous, simply fabulous.


I thought though it my duty to try the other specials they had on tap, other than the Delirium Christmas, which I couldn't justify spending silly money on. So next up came the Opat 17° Christmas Special from Pivovar Broumov, which looked like one of those peel-less marmalades (an abomination in my opinion - the marmalade, not the colour of the beer). The nose reminded me of various Christmasy type things, the sweetness of honey and a light spiciness of gingerbread, with just a subtle hint of vanilla. It was quite sweet, and a little syrupy, and I felt it could have done with a touch more bitterness. As the drink wore on, I am convinced I got a whiff of glue - not sure what was going on with that, but certainly it was there.


I decided to leave the light beers behind and go to the dark side to try the Rambousek 16° Christmas Special. Watching it being poured, I was thinking - "looks like a stout, head like a stout, hurrah, more stout!". Boy was I wrong. The nose was simply not what I expected, instead of the heavy coffee and chocolate smells I was expecting, there was a very nice floralness about the nose, although eventually some coffee and treacle made it through. And what a fantastic taste this stuff has, a rich sweet maltiness, like burnt toffee, all cut through with a gentle bitterness. Another wonderful beer - which I may have to pop round with a plastic bottle to get filled up and take home to Mrs Velkyal, to my mind it was possibly the best Christmas beer I have had.


I guess whatever I drank next would have had a hard act to follow, but having chatted for a bit with Pivní Filosof I opted for the Holba Šerák, a 14º amber lager which to be perfectly honest left me cold. It wasn't bad, but it could have been so much more. Perhaps I am comparing it too much with the magnificent Hukvaldy I had last month, but this just wasn't up there for me.


I do have a minor gripe though, and I have made this gripe before I think, but three of the beers I had only come in measures of 0.3l for 35kč, the equivalent would be about 60kč/£2.00/€2.40/$3.00 a half litre. For very strong beers I can understand selling a smaller measure, but for the American IPA then what possible justification is there for not selling the full half litre? It was the same situation with Primátor's magnificent stout, which was sold just up the road at U Radnice for 22kč for the full half litre.

Christmas Not So Special

Liverpool being top of the league was probably the highlight of my weekend, especially as with only 21 minutes to go we were staring at the distinct possibility of yet another 0-0 draw, which would have been the first time in Liverpool’s history that we had three 0-0 draws in a row. Thank goodness though for Xabi Alonso breaking the deadlock and we eventually ran out 3-1 winners to remain 1 point ahead of Chelsea.

Straight after the game I had to dash off and meet a friend as we had arranged to pop into Klášterní Pivovar Strahov to try the recently released Christmas Special, a 19° Doppelbock, which you can see in the picture above. My overwhelming impression was that it was just too sweet, with a powerful dose of alcohol, for my tastes - it was almost like drinking alcoholic honey to be blunt. I guess the root of my disappointment was that I had really enjoyed their autumn special and I asked if they still had some available, but unfortunately to no avail. Feeling peckish – as one does after a stressful game and rather too much beer – we decided to eat. I am a big fan of black pudding, much to Mrs Velkyal’s abhorrence, and so with the Czech version jelito on the menu it was an easy decision.

Strahov is one of my favourite brewpubs in Prague, not the cheapest by any stretch of the imagination but certainly one which I always enjoying going to. Doppelbock is very unlikely to become a regular tipple, but Strahov do make very nice beers, so if sweet and syrupy is your thing get up there soon and enjoy.

Beer Hero of the Week

I had a rant earlier in the week about pubs not having websites, which makes life a bit tricky when I go off to strange foreign lands - sometimes after 10 years in the Czech Republic, Britain feels somewhat odd at first. I could add to my rant the laxity with which members of certain "consumer organisations" reply to emails requesting information, so my Beer Hero of the Week is a shared by three breweries for their quick replies and that they gave me exactly the kind of information I was looking for when wrote at the beginning of this week.


Without further ado, my Beer Heroes this week are:

• Hop Daemon


• Westerham Brewery


• Ramsgate Brewery

I hope that over the few days I am in Kent at Christmas that I will find some of their brews to try.

The Session #22 - Prohibition

Being British and living in the Czech Republic, the question for this month’s Session – what does the repeal of Prohibition mean to you, and how will you celebrate your right to drink beer? – could almost too easily be dismissed as irrelevant.

The driving force behind Prohibition was a misrepresentation of Christian values, in particular a misrepresentation of Puritanism. There is nothing in the Bible which denounces the making and drinking of alcohol, Jesus himself indulged in a spot of home-winemaking at the wedding in Cana, much to the consternation of his guests – how dare they leave the best wine to last, when everyone was so pickled they couldn’t appreciate the flavours and aromas of simply divine wine! Without wanting to get into the theological nuances of Greek, it was wine not grape juice that Jesus handed out at the Last Supper, anything else would have been strictly un-Kosher, and Jesus was after all a Jew.

In the UK we had the Temperance League, dedicated to stamping out the ill effects of drunkenness within the working classes – a well meaning, if patronizingly paternalistic, attempt to improve the lot of the working man in much the same way as New Lanark was to be a model village for the workers.

Banning alcohol is ultimately counter-productive, because the demand for drink will always be there regardless of what is on the statute books, and it simply serves to create a new class of criminals. If governments are serious about lessening the effects of binge drinking then education is the key rather than legislation. Attempts to stigmatise alcohol simply glamorizes it in the minds of the impressionable.

What does the repeal of Prohibition mean to me? It means that a misguided attempt to make a better world, the unintentional creation of criminals and the misrepresentation of the Christian faith was put thoroughly and rightly where it belongs, to bed. How will I celebrate my right to drink? Well I am not the kind of person to go shoving my rights in other people’s faces, I believe that every right has a corresponding responsibility – the right to drink is really about drinking responsibly, “whatever that means” to quote Prince Charles.

Finally!!

Major kudos here to Evan for giving me the link to this site.

It looks as though the homebrew project is back on track!

Now, which of my ideas to make???

The Finalised Christmas Beer List

A wee while ago I compiled a list of beers which I was considering buying myself for Christmas, having decided that I could indeed afford 24 bottles of various British beers, here is the final list in full:

• Burton Bridge Santa's Porter
• Cropton Rudolphs Revenge
• Gordons Christmas Ale
• Naylors Santa's Choice Winter Warmer
• Naylors Scrooge's Christmas Barrel
• O'hanlon's Goodwill
• RCH Ale Mary
• Woods Christmas Cracker
• Black Sheep Riggwelter
• Bradfield Farmers Stout
• Hook Norton Double Stout
• O'Hanlons Port Stout - 2x
• Durham St Cuthbert Ale
• Durham Benedictus
• Durham Temptation
• Thomas Hardys Ale
• Wentworth Oatmeal Stout
• Harviestoun Engine Oil
• Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted
• Traquair House Ale
• Traquair Jacobite Ale
• Brewdog Rip Tide
• Atlas Latitude

I can't promise reviews of all of them, but I can promise they will all be drunk (I may be rather pickled myself as well!).

I ordered all of these from BeerRitz - and was very impressed at the speed with which the first 12 bottles arrived at my brother's place in Kent.

Peat Smoke Heaven

This is part 1 of a two part tasting, part two will take place sometime in September 2010, as that is the best before date on my bottles of BrewDog Paradox Smokehead, and I want to see what difference a couple of years, and being transported to the US will have on the beer.

When Mrs Velkyal and I move to the US next year, I plan to finally buy a brew kit and start making my own beer. Various recipes have already been designed, my head still spins with ideas. One of the first beers I thought of making was a peat-smoked stout, which I was going to call Machair. In my original plan I wanted to use a portion of distillers malt to give the smokiness of my favourite whiskey – Talisker, although I am also partial to Islay whiskies, in particular Laphroaig.
It was these plans for a peat smoke stout that flooded into my mind as I opened the bottle, and the unmistakable smell of whisky filled my nostrils, even before pouring. Having spent a month drinking dark beers, I fear that I have worn the word “dark” very thin, in which case this beer is absolutely opaque, not a glimmer of light could make it through! As you can see from the picture, there is very little head, all the better for letting the aromas escape and drive you crazy – behind the very evident whisky are traces of coffee and caramel, which in drinking serve to smooth out the beer. At 10%ABV, this is definitely not a beer for the faint minded – the warming glow of the alcohol lingers in the mouth and down the throat from the first sip (and trust me, you don’t want to be chugging this one).

Big, bold and brash, this is very much a grown-up’s beer.

Who Knows?

I am hoping this is an international phenomena, but could somebody please tell pub owners that having a net presence is a very smart move?

Whenever Mrs Velkyal and I go on our trips I like to do some research for pubs to go to, local beers to try and so on. Obviously with big brewers like Fuller's they have a section on their site listing their pubs, although I wonder why the pubs themselves don't have their own sites - especially as basic information site is cheap and easy to maintain.

You don't need to make some fancy pants website using dynamic languages such as php, a nice simple yet informative html set-up will do nicely.

What do I want to know:

• Opening hours
• What's on tap? (and if you are in the free trade keep it up to date)
• Is there food?
• Any special events?
• How to get there

No wonder pubs are going to the wall they fail to advertise their existence. Thank God for the CAMRA database, but even that should just be a starting point.

What Price Value?

At work last week, my line manager turns to me and says:

“Al, you have a beer blog, don’t you?”

“Indeed” I replied.

Thus I came to be in possession of a can of Tesco Value Beer, with a request to write about it, so here goes.

Made in Poland, with an ABV of 3.5% and only four listed ingredients, water, malt, hops and yeast – good start so far. It even looked as a lager should do, pale golden with a foamy white head, although that soon disappeared to leave a few large white patches on the top of the beer which for a moment made me think that the beer had a bad case of eczema. The tell tale smell of a god awful beer was the first thing to hit my nose, dish soap, although there was also a faint maltiness which suggested actually malt may once have gone through the same factory as this can of “beer”. Drinking it was possibly the biggest mistake I made, it was simply disgusting, worse even than the dreaded dark beer from Ů Pražský Most na Valsů. After one mouthful the remaining 400 and something milliliters were tipped down the sink.

Who drinks this stuff? Seriously, next time you see someone in Tesco with this foul abomination in their trolley or basket, consider it an act of civic duty to warn them that their choice of beer is abysmal and if they really want something to drink, to stick to mineral water. Alternatively, give them the difference in price between Tesco Value and something worth drinking and hope you make a convert to the cause of real beer.

Beer Bloggers Picnic

Saturday evening was spent in the presence of fellow bloggers Evan and Pivní Filosof as well as Boak and Bailey, who were over from London on a tour of Germany and the Czech Republic. Being good hosts, we hope, we arranged to meet up and introduce our visitors to some of our favourite pubs in the city, starting with Pivovarský klub, where the highlight for me was the very nice Granát from Pivovar Pardubice. After a while we walked up into Žižkov to drop into the very recently opened U Slovanské Lipy, Prague’s first pub selling beer from Pivovar Kout na Šumavě.

U Slovanské Lipy is very unlikely to win any style awards, and is definitely not the kind of place for those ex-pats for whom trips to the Potrefena Husa in Prague 3 is living dangerously. Sitting down at a table I was taken back to pubs in Southern Bohemia, where a previous girlfriend came from – a proper Czech pub, with great Czech beer, what more could anyone ask for? Well to start with we asked for a round of their desítka, 10° golden lager, and what a grand beer it is, putting to bed the idea that desítka is a weaker version of a brewery’s flagship dvanáctka, that’s 12° to non-Czech speakers.

Following hot of the heels of our drained glasses was the 14° dark lager, quite easily the best lager I have had in a very long time, whether light or dark, regardless of strength, this was just simply magnificent – worth the walk up the hill just in itself. Having made the required ohs and ahs about the dark, we progressed on to the 12° kvasnícové, also a very good beer and just too easy to drink – what lucky people they are in Šumava, not only do they live in a beautiful part of the world, but they have a great local brewer to enjoy. Last up was a round of small glasses of the 18° Baltic Porter. Again it was a nice beer, brimming with flavour, however for me it just didn’t reach the heights of the dark lager. If we didn’t have plans to visit Zlý Časy, I could happily have stayed and nursed several more pints of the dark goodness.

Zlý Časy provided with one of the most unexpected experiences of my beer drinking life, a Klášter worth drinking, in this case the 12°. I am a convert? We’ll see. Unforeseen circumstances, involving forgotten keys, meant that I had to call it an early night at around half ten. There are few more pleasurable nights to be had than sitting around drinking superb beers with good company, which without exception has been my experience of all the people I have met through this blog so far, and I am very much looking forward to the bottle of Gose which Boak and Bailey brought over from Leipzig.