Checking out the Czechs

If you’re a beer-lover, Czech Beer Week UK from the 17th-23rd of June is something to look forward to. Czech beer culture is one* of the world’s greatest, yet curiously it is one that most people will have only seen a small slice of.

From traditional to craft, and back again.

Indeed, pretty much all we saw in the UK until a few years ago were a those big-brands owned by multinationals – chiefly Staropramen (owned by Bass, now Coors), Pilsner Urquell (SABMiller, now Asahi), and perhaps Krušovice (Heineken). That has been changing, with a few more coming in, but while some are family-owned, such as Bernard, others are yet more big-brand subsidiaries – Kozel and Radegast are both Urquell/Asahi, for example.

There is plenty more change to come, though – even more so this year, as their government export agency CzechTrade is working to bring more small brewers to the UK market via importers such as Euroboozer and Pivovar UK, as I discovered last summer at the Czech Beer Day event that it held for the trade.

Just as English brown bitters tend to resemble each other, many Czech beers are also very similar in style – some are better than others, but most are recognisably similar golden lagers. That’s no surprise, according to one of the brewery reps I chatted with at Czech Beer Day last year. “Czech customers are still very local-orientated, so all the breweries produce similar beers, but for their locale,” he said.

He added an important note on naming: “All are Pilsner-style. Nobody says ‘Pilsner lager’ though, they just say Lager. Urquell is from Pilsen so it’s Pilsner, but they all use the Pilsner technique.” In other words, don’t call a Czech lager Pilsner if it’s not from Pilsen! (You can probably get away with 'Pils' though...)

Of course, there are other Czech beers too, including the inevitable IPAs and ales of other sorts. As everywhere, Czechia is having a Craft Beer revolution of sorts, and true to form this has generated quite a few local copies of styles from elsewhere – American IPAs, English pale ales, and so on. We had a few at Czech Beer Day, those I tried (mainly from Pivovars Permon & Clock) were very nice examples of their styles.

Sometimes the tradition is the craft. 

This variety is also a sign that Czech brewing is definitely on the up. It’s a far cry from just a few years ago, when things looked pretty bad, when the nationalisations of the Communist period were followed by a somewhat botched privatisation process which led to yet more brewery consolidations and closures. Now, as well as newly-formed breweries, there’s even been some closed ones brought back into production, such as Jarošovský, whose Ležák 12% was definitely my favourite lager of last Czech Beer Day, and a few contract-brewed brands, such as Praga (pictured).

Useful things to know if you want to get into Czech lager culture include a few key words such as Světlý – pale, Tmavé/Tmavý – dark, and Ležák – lager. Then there is Granát, which translates both as grenade and garnet – the semi-precious stone being the appropriate one here! Originally it was a blend of light and dark lagers that produced the deep red colour it was named for, but now it is often brewed ‘entire’, as we say in English, meaning as a single beer. It’s also sometimes called Temně, or semi-dark.

And there’s how the beer is poured. A few years ago, I went to an event hosted by Urquell, where their spokes-barman explained that there’s at least three main styles of pour, some of them distinctly weird. I was a little sceptical at the time, but another brewery rep at Czech Beer Day last year confirmed at least some of the details, adding that it varies between breweries too.

A thick head is essential, she said, adding that “People also believe the head retention shows the quality of the ingredients.” Apart from ‘beer with a head’, the other main pours are ‘milk’ which is all foam, and ‘snyt’ which is more foam than beer – drinkers believe this helps the beer stay fresh in the glass. Yes, I’m still sceptical! Still, however you pour it and whatever the colour, Czech out the beers – you'll almost certainly find something you like...


*Alongside British, of course, which is where Groll & co got the pale malt technology for Pilsner, and Belgian, which has become the custodian of legendary and almost-lost beer styles that were once common across Northern Europe. 

Then of course there’s German beer culture. Americans often prioritise this one, perhaps biased by their huge influx of German brewers in the 1800s (think Anheuser, Busch, Pabst, Coors, Schlitz et al). But even there, much is owed to what’s now Czechia – most obviously, Bud is named for Budweis in Bohemia, although a local surely wouldn’t recognise it as a Bohemian Lager. 

The art of hype: Meantime’s bonkers mini-bar

So a few days after meeting the ‘Make Time For it’ artists and enjoying their works – that list of artists includes brewer Ciaran Giblin, of course – I found a few hours to wander over to the Millennium Dome and see the results in all their glory in the completed pop-up pub.

And what a sudden dose of reality it was. Walking up, I could see the ‘pub’ was basically an 8’x6’ shed – B&Q or Wickes, it’s hard to tell – painted white and with furniture plonked in it. It was parked under the roof of a walkway, so I guess they weren’t too confident in its ability to withstand the London rain!

Inside was a friendly welcome and good beer. It all looked a bit thrown-together though – for instance, the tall taps on the bar were purely decorative, with the two beers actually coming from a portable keg unit on the floor behind. The neon lights sat awkwardly on the bar-top, and the hand-made glasses were glued to a shelf to prevent theft. The gorgeous mirror hung unremarked in a corner, and the special bench was hard to see in such a small space.

The two artworks readily visible were the intricate wallpaper and the tailored waistcoat, but of course the latter had to be worn by whichever barperson was serving – and sadly its cut wasn’t so flattering on the lady who was on duty when I visited.

But what a great publicity stunt it was! As well as generous newspaper coverage ahead of opening, they’d had photographers and TV people visiting the shed all week – a crew from a Dutch music TV channel arrived as I was leaving. And while you were supposed to book, they had had a lot more drop-ins than expected. The free beer, thanks to new owner Asahi’s publicity budget, might have played a part in this…

I also learnt a bit more about the ‘new’ Meantime. The pilot brewery there, funded and installed last year by previous owner SAB-Miller (which sold Meantime, Peroni and Grolsch to Asahi in order to get approval for its merger with AB-InBev), has been brewing an experimental new beer every other week this year. This is where the six artist-collaborated beers came from, and several more one-offs were on sale nearby in Meantime’s Beer Box, which is a couple of shipping containers converted into a bijou craft beer bar.

In addition, I discovered that while the SAB-InBev deal only completed this October, the sale of Meantime and the others took place several months earlier. Apparently the new Asahi employees each received a welcoming pack of sample beers from around the new Asahi empire. I can well imagine the scene as they opened them – a Eurolager from here, a Eurolager from there, and – oh look, another Eurolager. Yummy!

Incredibly annoyingly, I can’t find any of the photos I took during my visit, although I do have a couple of the Beer Box, so in the mean time here’s one of that. Sigh.

Rewriting history down Greenwich way

SAB-Miller was late into the craft beer market, but it has decided to catch up quickly - by rewriting history.

Through its Meantime Brewing subsidiary it has commissioned a mobile app that's an audio tour of "significant locations from London’s brewing past", and which just happens to end up at "our state-of-the-art Meantime Brewery – where the UK craft beer revolution was born in 1999."

In 1999 Meantime was (a) in a lock-up in Charlton, it only moved to its current Blackwall Lane site in 2010; and (b) about as 'craft' as any other German-style lager brewery.

Even in 2005 when it released interpretations of historic London Porter and IPA in 750ml bottles (from its Penhall Road site, the one in between Charlton and Blackwall Lane), it was mostly a lager factory. It's done some very nice beers since, but the cradle of UK craft beer? Hardly.

Cocoa, lemon and freshly sharpened pencils

Here's my notes on the Pilsner Urquell London Brew-Off beers. An instructive aspect was that the beers were offered for tasting with small plastic cup, in part to discourage people from pouring too much, as there was only a few litres of each one.

Unfortunately the smell of these cups overwhelmed those of the beer, and it was only when I switched to tasting similarly small measures but from a PU small glass tankard that I could appreciate the aromas.

Soundbite (4.8%) was a well constructed hoppy golden lager, with light caramel and nut notes and a touch of apple. Here's the board listing its recipe and brewing profile – there was one of these printed for each beer. My vote: 3.5/5

Pegasus (4.8%) was reminiscent of a pale ale, with light aromas of lemon and cedar – or as I wrote at the time, freshly sharpened pencils. I noticed this on a couple of the others too, and I think it must be down to the Czech Kazbek hops, which I've not knowingly encountered before. In the glass it was faintly nutty, with a touch of melon and a dry-bitter finish. My vote 2.5/5

Another Fine Mash (5.7%) was intended to be amber but actually came out closer to the average Munich Dunkel. Hazy brown with cocoa on the nose and a spicy malty body with hints of forest fruits, it was dry-bitter yet faintly sweet in the finish. My vote: 4/5

Czech Please (5.2%) had touches of golden malt and honeydew melon on the nose. The body was more like a Vienna/Pils hybrid, with faint spicy notes and hint of toffee leading to a sweet finish. My vote: 2.5/5

Velvet Pilsner (5%) was hazy gold – the Brew-Off beers were all bottled unfiltered – with a faintly woody and nutty nose (those pencil sharpenings again). I detected faint cocoa notes and a light nuttiness. My vote: 3/5

Citron (4.6%) as the name implies was meant as a modern citrusy twist on Pilsner. Cloudy yellow, its light aromas of lemon and grapefruit continued into the body, where they played along with a faint pepperiness and a hint of sherbet. My vote 4/5