Skoro Doma

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...

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Pale

As a fortnight of time off from the day jobs hoves into view, replete with weekday, and day time, drinking, it is time to look back at the best of the beers I have drunk in 2022. As in years past I plan to write a post each based on the capricious whimsy of colour, and then a final "best of' post to declare the Fuggled Beer of 2022.

My capricious whimsy of colour breaks down as follows:

• Pale - basically anything yellow or gold
• Darker than Pale, Lighter than Dark Brown - orange, red, brown, but able to be seen through
• Dark - very dark brown, or black

As usual I will offer up the highlights from Virginia, the rest of the USA, and the rest of the World, 3 finalists each, and honorable mentions where called for, culminating in a category winner, to go forward for the beer of the year post.

Let's get started with the pales then.

Virginia

• Krypto Pilsner - Decipher Brewing, Charlottesville
• Found Artifacts Pilsner - Wheatland Spring Brewing, Waterford
• Grill Method Grodziskie - Decipher Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Pylon Pilsner - Patch Brewing Company, Gordonsville; Downright Pilsner - Port City Brewing, Alexandria; Weekland Lager - Alewerks Brewing, Williamsburg.

Despite the fact that I am a terrible beer tourist, as I have openly admitted elsewhere, this year has actually been one with lots of new to me breweries, in most cases as a result of trading beers with fellow local beer fans. It was such a trade that brought Wheatland Spring into my beery orbit, a trade which included Found Artifacts, an unfiltered pilsner that rocked my socks off and I wished there had been more than a single can of in the trade, Even though that one can is the sum total of my Found Artifacts drinking in 2022, it was enough to be seared into my memory as the Virginian Pale Beer of the Year.

Rest of the USA

• Malý 8° - Schilling Brewing, Littleton, NH
• Herald 12° - Cohesion Brewing, Denver, CO
• Kellerpils - TRVE Brewing, Denver, CO

Honorable mentions: Helles - Bierstadt Brewing, Denver, CO; Alexandr - Schilling Brewing, Littleton, NH; Paulus - Schilling Brewing, Littleton, NH; Bavarian Pilsner - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT; Helles - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe VT; Pilz - Live Oak Brewing, Austin, TX; Pull - Columbia Craft Brewing, Columbia, SC; Captain Jack Pilsner - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC.

2022 picked up and ran with where 2021 left off in terms of being a stellar year for pale lagers from the rest of the US. The list of honorable mentions alone has several of my favourite beers missing, as well as several beers from breweries that make up a regularish part of my drinking. Imagine then just how difficult it is to separate the three finalists. Each of the beers in the top three I enjoyed on tap in their respective tap rooms, and even on that front it would be near impossible to choose a taproom I for singular praise, they were all wonderful places. Choose though I must, and so the Fuggled USA Pale Beer of 2022 is Schilling's magnificent Malý 8°, an 8° Plato pale lager with more flavour, complexity, nuance, and sheer delight in drinking than the vast majority of stronger beers on the market today, There is a reason I traipsed 2 cases worth home to Virginia.

Rest of the World

• Tannenzäpfle - Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus, DE
• Zwickel Pilsner - Radeberger Exportbierbrauerei, DE
• Hirter Privat Pils - Brauerei Hirt, AT

Honorable mentions: Organic Lager - Samuel Smiths Brewery, UK; Icelandic White Ale - Einstök Ölgerđ, IS

With such a wealth of US made pale lagers on the shop shelves these days, it is almost a wonder that international beers even get a look in. Having said that, we get Rothaus Tannenzäpfle on tap fairly often, and the Radeberger Zwickel Pilsner I picked up recently was unexpectedly lovely. However, Austria's Brauerei Hirt showed up at Beer Run not too long ago. Intrigued, I picked up a 4 pack as it seems that Austrian made pilsners hit my sweet spot, combining the bitterness of a southern German pilsner with the fuller malt body of a Bohemian. Hirter Privat Pils is thus a worth winner of the International Pale Beer of 2022.

Three simply magnificent beers, each of which would grace the tap list of the greatest beer bars of the world, but in the words of the Highlander, there can be only one. That winner then, whilst not being the reason I persuaded Mrs V and my best mate that a 4 hour drive to another state for a day trip to the town the brewery is in, it was definitely the highlight of the day. Huzzah then for Schilling Beer Co. and their majestic Malý, the Fuggled Pale Beer of 2022.

Cohesion Brewing...dokonalost

I first heard about Cohesion Brewing through an Instagram post, which showed an attempted pronunciation guide for several Czech beer words which I described at the time as "iffy". One of the founders of the brewery, Eric Larkin, reached out to me to see if I could give some pointers, which I was more than happy to do. My conversation with Eric so impressed me that I knew if I ever got to Denver then Cohesion would be an absolute must visit brewery. I absolutely visited last night, though unfortunately Eric was unable to be there, hopefully next time.

As I mentioned yesterday, I am over in Denver for work and yesterday several of my colleagues, including Jerry Fagerberg, arrived in town for our company retreat in the next few days. We bundled into an Uber and made our way to the brewery, which is in an industrial area, past many over workshops and businesses, that actually reminded of getting to Caboose Brewing in Vienna on a previous company night out.

Walking through the door my heart leapt for joy at the site of horizontal lagering tanks, and a chalkboard list of beers where everything included the °P, mostly 10 and 12, as well the Czech style designation, including diacritics! We weren't expecting to see the name of one of Jerry's local breweries from Minnesota though, Utepils have done a collaboration 10° pale lager with Cohesion, of which more later.

I actually wish I had taken a picture of the bar itself, as it was a delightful setup, with a pale green tile bar back, a pair of beer towers which housed the 6 Lukr taps, gleaming brass, an unexpected British beer engine, and all manner of Czech paraphernalia - nice to see you again Private Švejk. We started with the Cohesion 10° pale lager.

Look at that lovely cap of frothy wet foam...and what a gorgeous beer this is, as good a desítka as I have had in many a moon. Had I been served this in a pub in Prague, I would be a very happy camper. Much in the same spirit as Bierstadt, tradition is an honored thing at Cohesion, they decoction mash for example, which is always a good sign to me with lager breweries - yes, you can make good lagers with infusion mashing, but decoction just adds things to the beer that no amount of carapils can. Four mouthfuls and I was ready for a second beer...so I popped things up a degree or 2 and went for the Ovce 12°.

Again a wonderful beer, I was back to not bothering with notes, I was just enjoying really good examples of some of my favourite types of beer. Absolutely dripping with Saaz, this is a beer that would delight any fan of noble hops, I was delighted. Eventually we moved on to the Utepils collaboration, again a 10° beer, a bit paler than Cohesion's own desítka, and noticeably bitter, with a long lingering dry finish, another absolute banger of a beer.

By this point I had noticed a corner of the taproom that was set up in such a way that it reminded me of many a Czech boozer I have frequented, places like u Slovanské lipy or Hostomická nelévárna...maybe it was the wooden 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.

By this point I had settled on another collaboration beer as my go to, Herald 12° brewed in conjunction with Brewery Novalis in New York and using Saaz hops grown in New York state as well as Premiant hops. Another delightful brew that would more than pass muster in Czechia. With closing time approaching and swag having been bought, new brewery hats for the twins, the barman brought us over taster glasses poured in the mlíko manner, and it was actually the first time I had ever tried beer in this way - yeah I know, boring me for sticking to a regular pour. I don't recall which beer he brought over, but that foam was sweet and malty, and delicious. I am not sure I will ever become a devotee of mlíko but it was fun to try it.

I am sure plenty of others have waxed lyrical about Cohesion, and so I can only add to that chorus, what a fantastic brewery and taproom it is. Every beer we had was on point, the venue itself was a delight, and that little hospoda corner just capped the night to perfection. I also loved the fact that not a single beer was over 4.8%, and in the case of the 10° lagers, Cohesion's own was 3.9% and the Utepils collab 4.1%.

When it comes to Czech beer, it is easy to get snared into 14° and high dark lagers, but the 10° has been the go to beer for generations, it is the beer you drink in the hospoda with your mates, you maybe have 5 or 6 in a night and get up for work the next day none the worse for it, Czech beer culture is ultimately a drinking culture, and Cohesion seem to get that.

What a fantastic place and if you are ever in Denver and only want to visit one brewery, make sure it is Cohesion.