The Tipsy Terrace Tasting

One of the most pressing things to get done this week before moving on was polishing off the varied beers still sitting around Mrs Velkyal and I's flat. My problem though was how to do it? I had basically three options:

1. sell them
2. give them away
3. drink them

Admittedly I did give a few bottles away. However, I decided that the most prudent way of dealing with the situation was to drink them, but better to gather a few friends keen to try different beers from around Europe and introduce them to some of these delights. Thus it was that last night I went round to my good friend Mark's place to sit on his expansive balcony with another couple of guys and attempt to get through 25 beers from the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Scotland, England and Denmark.

Unfortunately we only managed to get through 14 of the beers, some pictures of which grace this post.

There was however one other beer on the list which I wanted the guys to try, the uninfected, though wildly over-carbonated, version of my Skippy Porter. I had previously only tried this beer with Evan Rail, who was very complimentary about it even though it erupted all over his kitchen floor. This time I was prepared, and opened the bottle in a flower pot, without flowers of course. Once again Skippy was a hit, with the guys saying it was one their favourite beers of the night, the smooth chocolate flavours I was aiming for were right up there, and the Fuggles bitterness was just right to add some bite. I initially thought that I wouldn't be brewing this beer very often, but given the reaction it gets I think I will have to simply refine the recipe and start making it in preparation for winter. I am finding now that I get more pleasure from my friends enjoying my beer than hoarding it all to myself in some attempt to save money on beer.

Thankfully I know that Mark and his family will be in the States for a few months at the end of the year, so our beer tasting will no doubt be repeated, hopefully with the added bonus of a couple of bottles of Strahov's Autumn Dark Special! On the menu already for when we sit on the patio in our new place will be my planned American style IPA loaded with Amarillo hops, also some more Skippy Porter as well as my first Irish Red Ale, tentatively called Mrs Velkyal's Red Hat.

Every prospect pleases!

Slowing Down

I like to try and post most days, it keeps me from being overwhelmed with the unemployment boredom blues - although July is more of a holiday preparing for the new life in Charlottesville.

I think though in the coming weeks posts will become scarcer, particularly next week as we get over the jet lag and sort out the various bits and pieces of life in America.

I still hope to post at least thrice weekly, I just ain't promising!

8 Beers, 24 Phrases, Pivovarský dům

• Pale Lager - golden, crisp, hoppy

• Dark Lager - dark ruby, aniseed, bitter chocolate

• Sour Cherry - copper, cherries, jammy

• Coffee - dark ruby, roasted coffee, stout lite

• Banana - cloudy golden, bananas on the turn, creamy

• Nettle - green (no really?), grass, washing liquid

• Chilli - pale red, floral, spicy afterglow

• Wheat - pale yellow, light bananas, extracty

Lamentations for the Dearly Departed

I have spent quite a bit of my time lately wandering around the centre of Prague, pretty much to keep myself vaguely busy and in an attempt to stave off unemployment lethargy. Whilst wandering about this morning, I was reminded of some of the pubs I used to frequent back in 1999 - 2001 which are no longer in existence. Two in particular came to mind, the Marquis de Sade and a place called Radegast, both of which were once on Jakubska in the heart of the centre.

I have mentioned the Marquis de Sade before, but still it grieves me to think of this place being the trendy wine bar it is today. The Marquis was one of those great pubs where it didn't matter the time of day you went in, the atmosphere was always very relaxed. In some ways it reminded me of the Harry Lauder, the north London pub in Nick Hornby's High Fidelty - including the fug of cigarette (and various other substances) smoke a couple of feet above people's heads. You could always rely on the Marquis to have a crowd of American exchange students looking lost and bewildered, and of course simply in need of meeting the certain people masquarading as a member of the British nobility, complete with retinue.

This is what the place looked like, sadly passed into the mists of Prague expat folklore:

Marquis De Sade in Prague

The old Radegast beer hall was simply that - a proper old time central European beer hall, which sold at the time Radegast beer back in its pre-SABMiller incarnation. The pub though was great, always lively and loud, but not with annoying music but rather the sound of chatter and the world being put to rights - a proper pub. Sadly I couldn't find any pictures of this wonderful drinking hole, but I figure most of you guys can figure out what a Czech beer hall would look like.

True enough the beer was never all that great in either place, but one think that has come to mind time and again lately is that great beer is not a necessity for a great pub. Prague is a poorer place for these once fabulous boozers now being wine bars.

What Would You Do?

My good friend, and superb photographer, Mark recently asked me what styles of beer I would introduce if I were in charge of Primátor? What a challenging idea, and I am not sure how I responded at the time apart from saying I would introduce an imperial stout as their Christmas special rather than simply re-labelling their Premium lager. Having taken some time to reflect further on this question, here are some suggestions.

Primátor market themselves at the "Speciality Specialists", which given their excellent Weizen, Stout and English Pale Ale brands certainly marks them out from the rest of the Czech brewing - I should point out of course that there is Kocour and other micros producing great ales, but we are talking about a brewer with a more extensive reach here. With that marketing in mind, I would firstly slim down the range of standard strength lagers to just the Premium, Tmávé and the 13˚ Polotmávé. That would include ditching the new 11˚ lager, even though it is a good beer, after all if you are the speciality specialists, why do what everyone else including Gambrinus, Budvar, Svijany and Kozel are doing? Some will no doubt cry that there is a market, and true enough there is, but what is special about doing that which is becoming run of the mill?

Regarding the range of strong lagers, I would focus on the award winning 16˚ Exklusiv at the expense of the 21˚ Rytířský, and begin introducing it to export markets - particularly the new 33ml bottle version. I am thinking primarily here of the British and Irish markets where strong lagers certainly have their following, perhaps not the elegant eloquent quaffers like us though.

Thankfully the guys at Primátor have already started addressing one cause of confusion with their wonderfully rich 24˚ Double, which is now being sold as a Baltic Porter. Previously the label referred to it as a Special Dark Beer, while Ratebeer and BeerAdvocate list it as a Doppelbock and Euro Dark Lager respectively. With that slight confusion cleared up, this 10.5%ABV heavyweight can take on the likes of Pardubický Porter - and indeed will be doing so in a taste test soon here, alongside the German variant Neuzeller Porter.

Having dealt with the current range, we turn to what new products would I introduce to their slimmed down selection of beers? Firstly, as I said above, I would start producing a special Imperial Stout Christmas Beer to replace the lame re-labelled effort currently used, and no that wouldn't mean re-labelling the Double and packaging it in a smaller bottle. As for other options it would be too easy to let my imagination run riot and suggest things involving rauchmalt, fruit or any number of weird and wonderful ingredients, but I feel that for a company the size of Primátor it is better to make excellent examples of recognised styles for an already conservative market.

As such I would probably look at introducing an IPA to the range, probably an American version with plenty of C-hops and Amarillo for citrusy zing. Given that they already make beer style from England, Germany and Ireland, perhaps looking for inspiration in the other major European brewing countries would also be a possibility - a Belgian Abbey Ale, a 90/- Scottish ale or a French Biere de Garde even?

Who Gose There?

It sometimes seems as though Reinheitsgebot is held up as some paragon of beer virtue, in much the same way as some people think all keg beers are inherently evil, and yet it was the misuse of the Bavarian Beer Purity Law which saw the decimation of the German brewing culture which had more in common with Belgium than Bavaria in the post unification years. The combined forces of Reinhesitsgebot and pilsner style beer wiped out practically everything except a clutch of beers including Altbier and Gose.

Last year when Boak and Bailey came over to Prague as part of their whistle stop central European tour, they generously gave myself and Pivní Filosof a bottle of Goedecke's Döllnitzer Ritterguts Gose each, mine of which sat in my cellar until very recently. Gose has a fascinating history, which you can read a bit about here, and has some distinctly non-Reinheitsgebot ingredients, such as salt and coriander. Thus it was with a great sense of curiosity that I popped open the bottle.

As you can see from the picture, the beer poured a light golden colour with a thin white head, which disappeared rather quickly. The nose was really unusual, spicy like a wheat beer, laced with citrus fruit, in particular oranges and also a distinct smell of sour milk - I have to admit that I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be that way and so I texted Evan to make sure. In terms of taste, again there was a citrusy twang, but like the flavour you get with soluble vitamin tablets, like minerals. The thing I found surprising was just how salty it tasted, almost as though the beer had been made with sea water.

Certainly a very interesting beer, but not one I could imagine drinking regularly. Having said that I will try it again when the opportunity presents itself, because I am aware that tastes change and you never know when it might just all click for me.

Homebrewing Equivalent of Itchy Feet?

Whatever it is, I am suffering from it! I have even provisionally penciled in August 8th as my first day of brewing in the States. I have it in mind to make an Irish Red Ale to lay down a bit for autumn, but as it would be my first brew in the States perhaps an American Pale Ale would be in order, or an American IPA?

One of the things that I am very much looking forward to is having a wider range of ingredients to choose from, in particular on the hop front, and letting my imagination run riot a bit - for example, I am playing with the idea of a Florida Witbier using Key limes rather than the green Persian variety, or even an Earl Grey Wheat beer with bergamot and ginger.

It looks as though these guys here will be our ingredient supplier, and if Mrs Velkyal gets her way, we will soon be building a still to start making our own spirits. Also in mind for the near future is making cider, which I believe would be called "hard" cider in the States, and from that perhaps an apple spirit. So many plans and ideas....

Really?

For those who don't speak Czech, the Pilsner Urquell beer mat above says something along the lines of "it is not necessary to change perfection". It then goes on to say that the spirit level was invented in 1661 and that the extraordinary taste of Pilsner Urquell has been there since 1842 (being snide do they mean the taste of the unfiltered version or the standard bottled stuff?).

So the marketing boffs at Pilsner Urquell want us to believe that their beer tastes exactly the same as in 1842? I may not be up there in the zythophilic stratosphere with the likes of Michael Jackson, but after ten years in the Czech Republic I can tell that something has changed. Could it be the shorter lagering time now used? Or possibly the stainless steel fermenters and tanks rather than wooden barrels?

While the mat is indeed correct in stating that it is not necessary to change perfection, experience begs the question why the hell did they?

The Rumours are True

On Beer Culture last week, Evan mentioned that the beer at Pražský Most u Valsů had improved quite dramatically. To be perfectly frank, as I wrote here, it really couldn't get much worse. I am not usually one for pouring beer down the sink, but when I last tried the dark that's exactly where it went.

At something of a loose lunch time end, I sent Evan a message to see if he fancied a quick pint over lunch and we agreed to meet at Pražský Most to try again. Sure enough the beers are betetr than last year, particularly the dark, which is a nice dry schwarzbier style. Simply put, it is good to see brewpubs not sitting on their laurels and trying to improve their beers.

We decided however not to have lunch there, opting instead on the spur of the moment to drop into one of Ron Pattinson's favourite Prague haunts - U Rotundy, a proper rough as nuts Czech pub, which sells Staropramen. We ended up having lunch for about 100kč each, and on the beer front I decided to have the Staropramen Černé, which while not being a patch on the Budvar or Kout versions, really wasn't that bad at all.

Porter Ancient and Modern

Last week I met up with Evan Rail in order to compare Ron Pattinson’s 1914 porter with a couple of modern day versions, namely Fuller's London Porter and Lovibond’s Henley Dark.

As you can see from the picture below, there was a very noticeable colour difference between the modern versions and the re-creation, Ron’s was more brown than ruby like the Fullers and Henley Dark, and although the picture doesn’t show it, the Henley Dark is a lot darker than the London Porter.

In terms of flavours, both Fullers and Henley Dark were rich and laden with rich fruit and cocoa notes, which I could very easily imagine enjoying with Christmas pudding or a nice chunk of stilton. Ron’s porter was also fruity, though I felt it was less rich and cloying than either of the modern versions.

The London Porter was to my mind a bit drier than the Henley Dark, although the 1914 recipe was much drier than either, some people have commented that Ron’s porter is sour, however I didn’t feel it was particularly noticeable, especially when compared to the Dark Reserve I drank last week.

I feel that it would be unfair to say which of the three beers I enjoyed the most, especially as the task at hand was not to rate the beers but rather to compare a modern interpretation of the style to a historical precedent.

Clearly modern malt production methods have changed the colour profile of porter from a brown to a very dark red beer, and if the 1914 version is faithful to the flavour profile, porter has become richer. It will be interesting to see what beer geeks in the year 2104 make of our modern porters when compared to their own, and see the continued evolution of beer styles.

Skippy The Hoppy Porter

My original plan was to make a smooth chocolate stout, hopped only with Fuggles. I have stated the ingredients elsewhere, and so after three weeks of sitting in the bottles I decided to try both variants next to each other, and I decided that given the absence of unmalted roast barley, this would be designated a porter rather than a stout.

The first bottle was the weaker of the two variants, and on opening it gushed like a volcano. So much so that I lost about two thirds of the bottle before it stopped – thankfully I opened the bottle in the sink and didn’t make a great mess of the kitchen floor, as you can see in the video at the foot of this post (sorry it is sideways), unlike the bottle of the stronger version I tried with Evan last week.

Boy is this stuff dark, absolutely no light could make its way through the glass, and the head very quickly disappeared. The nose was exactly what I wanted, lots of caramel, burnt sugar and chocolate, with a noticeable grassiness to it as well. In the mouth, however, I was disappointed – where I had wanted something smoothly sweet, I now had a slight sour edge, which Mrs. Velkyal described as “metallic”. The hops though were very noticeable, and I think I over-hopped for sure – there were 4 additions, 25g with 60 minutes to go, 10 with 30, 10 with 15 and 5 with 3.

The second and the stronger of the two had the same colour profile but this time the brown head stayed a bit longer. The nose was again just what I wanted, and this time the smokiness I had aimed for was lingering in the background. I think the extra malt in this version balanced out the hops far better than the previous version, and so made it quite a nice, though hoppy, porter, with a slightly burnt taste to it. This was the version I shared with Evan last week, and he was most complimentary about it, so I will continue to work on the recipe, having said that I could perhaps create a new style American Imperial Porter, with a hefty hop dose as well as more malt?

It will be about 7 weeks now before I get to brew again and I am already getting itchy fingers to do something. I have even spent time working out a brewing calendar for my homebrew and if I stick with that the next beer will be an Irish Red Ale, just in time for my first autumn in Virginia - sorry guys, it may take some time for autumn to become the Fall – my inner theologian has images of Adam and Eve discovering sin when I hear that term.

Pilsner? Really?

Pilsner is one of the few beer styles to have a clearly defined birthday, the first ever glass of this golden lager was served in Plzeň on November 11th 1842 and soon gave birth to a multitude of imitations around the world. In the Czech lands however, Pilsner style beers eventually came to mean the vast majority of beer from Bohemia and Moravia. Thus any brewer which makes a “pilsner” lager will be judged next to the standards set by Josef Groll and subsequent makers of golden lager in the Czech lands.

When I received a bottle of BrewDog’s 77 Lager along with the production versions of Zeitgeist and Chaos Theory I knew I wanted to compare it to a couple of Czech lagers, in this case Budvar and Žamberecký Kanec. I choose Budvar because of the major Czech lager brewers they still use all malt and whole hops, rather than the somewhat ambiguous ingredient in Pilsner Urquell, “hop products”, Kanec because it is a small artisan brewer, and the BrewDog label calls 77 Lager a “artisan rebel lager”.

In an effort to be as fair minded as possible I decided to do the tasting blind, and so had Mrs Velkyal bring me each glass of beer individually without telling me what was what, here are my thoughts on each beer:

Beer A

• Sight – pale golden, firm white head
  
• Smell – quite malty, touch of smoke, a bit grainy – like Weetabix
  
• Taste – nicely balanced, light caramel
  
• Sweet – 2/5
  
• Bitter – 2/5
  

I thought this beer was medium bodied, and had slight touches of banana, however it was refreshing.

Beer B

• Sight – golden with a white head
  
• Smell – not much going one, some grass and citrus notes
  
• Taste – gentle sweetness up front, but delicately bitter aftertaste
  
• Sweet – 2/5
  
• Bitter – 1/5
  

Again a pleasantly refreshing beer.

Beer C

• Sight – light amber with a smallish head
  
• Smell – heavy on the citrus, grapefruit in particular – American C hops?
  
• Taste – citrus in your face with malty undertones
  
• Sweet - 1.5/5
  
• Bitter – 3/5
  

This was clearly not a pilsner style lager, more like an IPA. As Mrs Velkyal commented on smelling it “no Czech beer smells like that”.

From the tasting I guessed that the beers were as follows:

• A – Kanec
  
• B – Budvar
  
• C – BrewDog 99 Lager (not really a guess after smelling it)
  

I identified all three correctly, and while I enjoyed them all in their own right when it comes to being a Czech style pilsner lager, the BrewDog version was never in the running. It simply isn’t a pilsner beer despite claims to the contrary on the label. Of the other two, I enjoyed them very much, and they are both in the Bohemian tradition, but the one I would choose to drink regularly is the Budvar, which has long been my favourite mass produced Czech lager and thus my first task in Charlottesville is to find a regular supply of Czechvar as our American friends call it.

For a comparison of 77 Lager with German style pilsners, see Adeptus' thoughts over on The Bitten Bullet.

Integrity?

Here’s a thing which may surprise one or two of you, I studied to be a minister of religion, which meant 3 years of church history, theology, ethics and my favourite subject, hermeneutics. One of the themes raised time and again in college was how to maintain your integrity within the community you work with? It is something I think about quite often with regard to my blogging activity, in particular how not to compromise my freedom to say what is on my mind?

That is one of the reasons why Fuggled is a paid advertising free zone, and I realize that on my blog I regularly and openly advertise people’s products, whether I have enjoyed them or not, though I wonder how many people have rushed out to try Gambrinus Excelent on the basis of me saying it isn’t terrible?

Neither do I give myself the title of a beer expert, which is such a relative term anyway as to be almost meaningless. Within one group of my friends I am the most knowledgeable about beer, within yet another group I spend most of my time listening and learning something new, whether about styles or flavours to expect from a given beer.

Perhaps when Mrs V and I are in the States I will do the beer judge course and take my knowledge to a higher level – that sounds esoteric and poncey - but until then I am just a bloke who loves beer, home brewing and writing (something I hope I am half decent at).

Picture Time...again

Kanec Imperial Stout and a couple of bottles of their lager, tasting notes coming soon....

6 English ales for tasting

6 English ales after tasting

A sampler tray in Brauhaus Lemke, Berlin

Primator Stout, all back to front

On Reflection

As I have mentioned before, I was disappointed by the Czech Beer Festival, even though Mrs Velkyal and I stayed for about 8 hours on the day we were there. The experience of the festival and the parallel event held at Zlý Časy got me to thinking about my expectations of a beer festival, and how that differs from going to a pub with a wide range of beers available.

As I said in my post about the Czech Beer Festival, one of the things I would like to have seen would have been special beers made exclusively for the festival. As it was, not one of the breweries at the event felt the need to stand out from the crowd by doing something outside their usual line up, so thank goodness for the ales from Primátor. Perhaps this then is something that the guys at Zlý Časy can bear in mind should they do a similar event again next year – and if none of the breweries will make unique beers, then use their event as the launch for another version of their Zabiják z Nuslý beer.

Probably the biggest problem with this year’s Czech Beer Festival was the choice of venue. The problem though wasn’t the actual location – after all the show grounds at Letňany are right next to the metro station, which is only about 15 minutes from the centre of the city. The problem was that when it rained, which it did almost every day of the event, the field very quickly became waterlogged. Admittedly Prague isn’t blessed with a plethora of venues for these kind of events – however I think an alternative really needs to be found for next year’s event. Personally I think Letna Park would be better, especially on its clay pitches, assuming of course that the tunnel being built is finished.

I realize that this is the beer geek in me speaking, but I would have liked to have the possibility of sampling a lot more beers at the Czech Beer Festival. It woud have been nice to be able to have the option of a 100ml sample rather than having to take the half litre or 300ml on offer. I wonder how many people were put off trying something new because if they didn’t like it then they had wasted 40kč, and so stuck to those beers they knew? Of course the Czech Beer Festival isn’t really pitched at beer geeks, although the welcome presence of micros does make it more likely that we would wander up at least once, but then as I have said before if I really want a grilled sausage and pint of something decent then I will take a stroll to my local, rather than go to a festival.

In reality the Czech Beer Festival is little more than an overpriced 10 day beer garden with a few fairground rides lobbed in for good measure (one of which was called “Staročeský Loch Ness”, which translates as “Old Czech Loch Ness” – funny that, I don’t remember Loch Ness having anything to do with the Czech lands, whether old, new or faintly middle aged). In the same vein, I would think of the event Zlý Časy more of a “pivní akce”, the nearest I can get to in English there is “beer action”, than a beer festival – especially given that they have a wide range of Czech micros on their taps all year round anyway.

Of the two events, I much preferred Zlý Časy’s – but given that it is one of my favourite pubs anyway I have to take that into account, but it has certainly been a very encouraging start, and perhaps one that can become a regular event, perhaps one in winter showcasing dark beers would be a good idea? It is good that Prague has places like Zlý Časy, and Pivovarský klub swimming against the tide and bringing a wider range of beers to beer lovers in the city, long may it continue.

Dark Depths

So far my experience of porter has been a mixed bag, like the sweet and sour jellied sweets I loved as a kid – quite literally. Some of the big and brash Baltic Porters I have tried were very sweet while others were rather sour, making it difficult for me to really decided whether or not porter is my thing.

At the weekend the removal company came to pack our belongings for the move to the USA so all my beer glasses have gone, hence the TESCO hi-ball glass in the pictures, we also reserved our new apartment in Charlottesville which is 4 times bigger than our current shoebox, and has a patio! With the flat starkly bare, my little cellar is in dire need of being emptied, so I made a start by opening one of my bottles of Lovibond’s Dark Reserve – a stronger, barrel aged version of the their standard porter, Henley Dark, which I wrote about here.

Like the Gold Reserve, the Dark comes in 750ml bottles – making it ideal for sharing with friends. The beer itself is very dark indeed, a deep crimson ruby which is almost impenetrable to light except around the edges, the head is a light tan and fades rather quickly.

The nose is a cacophony of chocolate and sweet caramel, with roasted coffee undertones and a subtle yet noticeable smokiness. Tastewise, the chocolate theme continues, but instead of being like a British Galaxy or Yorkie bar, this is more of an American Hershey bar, laced with sourness. The beer is also rather fruity, like a good heavy British Christmas cake done properly with plenty of brandy fed through it – there is a noticeable alcoholic glow and again the light smokiness comes through. Again Lovibond’s have crafted a very nice beer, the one thing I would say though is get at least one other person to enjoy the Dark Reserve with you, and pair it with that most British of cheeses, extra mature farmhouse Cheddar (a constant source of mickey taking in the Velky Al household, as I maintain that real Cheddar comes only from the village of the same name in Somerset).

Lovibond’s only make batches of 500 bottles at a time for this beer, and this was from batch 1 – a very good start indeed.

Getting My Goat

I guess everyone, if they are honest, has a major industrial beer brand which they once loved and now lament that it simply isn’t as good as it used to be – in particular when the brand is question was once an independent brewer. For me that brewer is Velkopopvický Kozel, who today are one the components of SABMiller’s Czech operations, along with Pilsner Urquell, Gambrinus and Radegast.

Back in 1999 as a fresh college graduate who had decided to teach English in Prague for a year before going back home and to the “real world”, I discovered that Kozel was the kind of beer I really liked. It helped that back then it was the beer on tap in Zlatá Hvězda, so I drank copious amounts whilst watching Liverpool. I liked that it was a clean and crisp lager, with a good hoppy bite – I didn’t try the dark back then, which I regret now, having had it recently and thinking it was pretty dire.

Then the brewery was bought by Pilsner Urquell, who in turn got bought by SABMiller and the bean counters took over – sorry if there any accountants reading this, but in future please stick to counting what comes in and goes out rather than changing, some would say ruining and I would agree with them, a lovely product in the name of “extracting brand value” from it.

Last night I went for a stroll in the gathering rainy gloom, and stumbled upon a pub called Kozlovna, and out of sheer nostalgia headed in for a pint of their 11˚ Medium – which you can see in the picture. Nothing spectacular, nothing awful either, but it is nice to see a pub or two dedicated to the Goat. Still though, I have the urge on occasion, like the kid who has kicked his ball into the neighbour’s garden, to ask if I can have my goat back.