Having arrived in Denver on a Saturday afternoon, clearly these posts are not in any particular chronological order, I got myself unpacked at my hotel and headed off in search of good beer. The word "search" is doing quite some heavy lifting there, as I knew exactly my plan of attack. Thus it was that I found myself at Bierstadt, perusing the food menu whilst nursing a pint of their helles - personal heresy, the helles is infinitely better than the Pilsner, so I didn't bother with that. Having just ordered a pint of dunkel, I noticed a message on my phone. Mike Stein of Lost Lagers was on his way to Cohesion Brewing and would I like to meet him there? Well, d'uh. Cohesion was my plan for after Bierstadt anyway, and I figured I would forego the health benefits of food, and get my backside over there asap.
Last time I was at Cohesion was back in 2022, and I wrote a post where I described the place as "perfection". So, obviously, I was excited to be getting back there on this trip, and not just for the beer, which we'll come to in a bit.
A very major part of my excitement was the thought of sitting in the hospoda style nook, just to the right hand side of the bar. When I was there in 2022, I described it thusly:
"it reminded me of many a Czech boozer I have frequented...maybe it was the wooded paneled wainscoting, sure still a bit clean in its newness, but I insisted our group abandon our table so I could create some hospoda nostalgia for myself".
Four years of wear and tear have knocked that shiny new sheen off that area, and now if anything it is even more welcoming, and so having dragged (not really) Mike from an outside trestle table, I got in my first beer of several...their desítka, that's a 10° lager for the non-Czech speakers among us.
If ever there is a specific type of Czech style pale lager that I will always gravitate to, it is the desítka, even though in Czechia the 12° has recently overtaken 10° lagers as the most regularly drunk. Cohesion 10° - got to love that they don't bother coming up with daft names for their core beers - is a wonderful example of such beers. I hate the concept of "style" when it comes to Czech lager, as while it is true that most desítky are pale, they don't have to be, there are polotmavé and tmavé desítky in the world. Back to this particular desítka, it is freaking lovely, freaking, freaking lovely. It reminded me very much of the Hostomice Fabián 10°, a fantastic balance of lightly honeyed malt and the lemon kiss of Saaz - perfect. If I was sat with only this beer on tap in a backstreet hospoda, I'd not be in any rush to move on.
Moving on up though, we went to the 12°. What heavenly nectar is this? Seriously people, here's a beer that stands up to the very best of Czech lagers. To my mind it sits comfortably between Břevnovský Benedict and Únětický Pivovar's great 12°. This beer puts completely to bed the daft notion that doing a triple decoction mash is pointless, the depth of malt flavour is outstanding. The bitterness is assertive without being wildly bracing, making for fantastic drinking. If it's not obvious yet, I was enjoying myself.
Enjoying myself so much that I blanked on taking a picture of the polotmavý, or even take any notes, though I do recall it being rather delish. Naturally I went through the colour gears and had půllitr of Lípa, their tmavé next, and guess what, I didn't take a picture of that either on this trip, nor notes, but it was again an excellent beer, almost like a thick slab of toast with generous amounts of Nutella slathered all over it, and then dunked in Turecká káva - and while that may translate as "Turkish coffee" don't go expecting anything like actual Turkish coffee if you order this in Czechia.
Being thoroughly saturated in glorious pivo, I headed back to my hotel and the vain hope of finding something more substantive than the liquid bread I had gorged upon. I knew that I would be coming back before returning to Virginia, and so after my session at Hogshead a few days later, I made my way over for a couple of farewell beers. This time I remembered to take a picture of Lípa.
I still wasn't taking notes, I was sitting in the hospoda nook knowing that this is likely the closest I will get to a Czech vibe for quite some time - unless work sends me to Europe again in the near future, when I will do my usual and take a few days to get to Prague.
Cohesion are one of a very short list of breweries that absolutely get Czech beer, and the attendant culture around it - do I wish they had a selection of pub snacks to mop up the beer, absolutely, but that is a quibble. All of the beers I had in my pair of visits on this trip would more than stand up, and even stand out, in Czechia itself, and all with no gimmicks, no pretension, just good quality beer in a brewery that is clearly committed to doing things the way Czechs do them. Do not be surprised if they are mentioned often in my annual review of the year come December.
Oh, and I love their beer mats. I was heartbroken when I got home to discover I had left these three in my hotel room...
No comments:
Post a Comment