Every Friday we take a break from our regular blogging schedule to allow the authors an opportunity to feature a certain topic they are passionate about. In the past you’ve read about art, studying abroad, and experiencing culture through food. Through this and other future posts we hope you’ll enjoy reading, we hope to share with you our personalities, passions, and interests on a more personal level.
Have you ever taken a pay cut to stay close to your local brewery?
After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, national borders opened and opportunities for better jobs and higher pay enticed many Eastern European residents to leave their homelands and move west. However many Czechs, motivated by their love of local brews, decided not to relocate for these new opportunities. Now that is devotion!
Before journeying to the Czech Republic, I found an article ranking the Czech Republic as drinking the most beer per capita of any country. On average, every Czech resident consumes 156.9 liters of beer per year. For comparisons, the Czech Republic leads second place Ireland by almost 26 liters. That is some serious drinking!
Most of the pubs Rebekah and I encountered during our time in the Czech Republic only served one brand of beer. Canopies and large patio umbrellas proudly proclaimed which beer their restaurant served. Some bars only served the flagship beer of the brewery, while other pubs offered up to three beers from their sponsored brewery. The beer was almost always served in the brewery’s pint glass.
Pilsner Urquell at the Golden Tiger Pub
In general, the most popular beer is Pilsner Urquell, with Staropramen coming in second place.
Rebekah and I accidentally enjoyed a double round of Pilsner Urquell at a great local bar, The Golden Tiger Pub. At the Prague Airport, our last beer in the Czech Republic was Pilsner Urquell’s black lager, Kozel Černý.
Staropramen Taps at Hotel Hastal’s Pub
Even our hotel had a bar, noted for some of the cheapest pints of beer in Prague. Unfortunately, we did not get a chance to partake in their three Staropramen taps. However, we did enjoy a Staropramen Černý (Dark) at a delicious pizzeria in the Old Town Square.
If you venture outside of Prague to the surrounding country, you will find a variety of regional beers. Even in Prague, you can find more options than the national brands. For example, we enjoyed a delicious lager, Lobkowicz Knízeci Pivovar. While normally found only in the lands once ruled by the Lobkowicz family, we enjoyed this tasty beer on draft at the Lobkowicz Palace Café at Prague Castle. This was possibly my favorite beer in the Czech Republic!
Lobkowicz Knízeci Pivovar at the Lobkowicz Palace Café
Wanting to experience more of the Czech Republic, we ventured from Prague to the amazing town of Český Krumlov. The local brewery, Eggenberg, produced a delicious Czech Pilsner Světlý Ležák. For a change in style, we tried the dark Schwarzbier, Tmavy Lezák. While dark in color, the black beer still tastes light and actually has less alcohol content than the pilsner. This seems to be very common for dark beers in the Czech Republic.
With our time in the Czech Republic coming to a close, I wanted to try one more Czech beer before flying to Paris, land of wine. On the train ride to Český Krumlov, we discovered that drinking on the train is socially acceptable. With this in mind, I purchased a large bottle of beer from a local grocery store for only 13 Crowns, or $0.62. It would have been even cheaper if I had been able to return the bottle for my deposit!
Budweiser Budvar Original
The beer I grabbed in my haste was Budweiser Budvar Original. As in, the original Budweiser. Brewed in the Czech town of České Budějovice, there have been endless trademark battles between the Czech brewery and the American beer giant, Anheuser-Busch. To save you all the drama, Anheuser-Busch lost multiple cases in the European Union court system. As a result, in most of Europe Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser is marketed simply as Bud. In most of North America, Budweiser Budvar Original is marketed as Czechvar.
Half way through our four hour trip, I popped the top of the room temperature beer. After all the lawsuits, I realized that Anheuser-Busch perfectly copied the Czech version, as both tasted equally subpar to me. What a waste! This was the only disappointing beer I had in the Czech Republic.
Let me leave you with a few tips. First, beer in Czech is pivo (pronounced PEE-voh). Light beer is světlé pivo (SVYEHT-leh) and dark beer is tmavé pivo (TMAH-veh). Also, you will notice degree signs associated with Czech beers, as seen in the above picture of the right Staropramen tap. This symbol does not equal percent alcohol. It is a measurement of densities of the beer’s ingredients. In general, the low densities (10°) are pilsners with about 3.5% ABV, and higher densities (11° to 15°) are darker beers with higher alcohol contents. For example, a 12° beer is about 4.2% ABV.
By the end of writing this article, I am reminded how much I wish to return to the Czech Republic and sample more Czech beers! This part of the local culture was such a great part of our trip.
The hard hat tours are virtually impossible to do because they are only offered on Friday’s at 1 PM and there is a limit of fifteen people allowed on the tour. The benefits are that it is a three hour tour, you can go behind the scenes of both breweries (The Riverside and the Hilltop), and there is a beer and cheese pairing available. The self-guided tour is essentially walking in the hallways of the brewery and observing the different processes through big glass walls. The hard hat tour allows you into those sections and onto the manufacturing floor.
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