Dark Thoughts Abound

Tmavé, the Czech style dark lager, has been on my mind a lot recently.

Not just because Morana is available at Devils Backbone Basecamp at the moment, I don't believe it is on at either of their other locations, Outpost in Lexington or Back Yard in Charlottesville, but hopefully it will be at some point. Also not just because I am planning to brew my own version of Morana, that I call Černý Lev (that's Black Lion for the non-Czech speakers), at some point in the nearish future as I have started doing decoction mashes with my homebrew. These two facts though are related to my pondering...but first a quick jaunt back in time, to last November.

I went back to Prague, which you probably know as I posted about some of the beers and pubs I went to, but I didn't write about every pub or even every beer I had in the pubs I did write about. While I did write about the perfect session at Hostomická Nelevarna, I didn't mention that I had a couple of half litres of Hostomice's delightful Fabián Tmavý 14°. To my mind it is one of the best dark lagers being brewed in Czechia today and certainly one of my favourites. As my group of friends and I discussed the finer points of Czech beer in general, it was mentioned that Fabián Tmavý is not a classic Czech dark lager, because the proportions of Pilsner and Munich malt are reversed.

In my homebrew version of Morana, which is basically the same other than using CaraMunich I rather than CaraBohemian, which I can't see to find in any of the online homebrew stores, the grain bill is:

• 74% Bohemian Pilsner
• 11% Munich
• 11% CaraMunich I
• 4% Carafa III Special

Initially, I was shocked at the idea of using so much Munich malt in a tmavé, but also deeply intrigued by how such a beer would turn out. I imagine it would be richer, with a deep malt character, a more intense breadiness, and would probably take an extra wallop of hops to give the balance I would expect. As I was pondering, and reading the Pivovar Hostomice description of Fabián Tmavý, a phrase jumped out at me, that I think I probably just glossed over previously, "Tmavé speciální pivo bavorského typu", which translates as "special dark beer, of the Bavarian type". The description continues...

"K výrobě tohoto speciálu bylo použito čtyř druhů sladů, což zaručuje plnou, výrazně sladovou, chuť a však bez sladkého doznívání většiny českých, tmavých, piv. Toto pivo je nečekaně výrazně chmelenoa výrazná hořkost udílí tomuto pivu nečekanou pitelnost. Tmavé pivo, které Vás překvapí."

Which translates as:

"Four types of malt were used to produce this special, which guarantees a full, distinctly malty taste, but without the sweet aftertaste of most Czech dark beers. This beer is unexpectedly very hoppy and the strong bitterness gives this beer an unexpected drinkability. A dark beer that will surprise you."

So, we still have the 4 types of malt, just with more Munich than Pilsner from what I was told, and big dose of hoppiness and bitterness to make the beer more drinkable. For reference, Morana has about 25 IBUs. I decided to create a new recipe for Černý Lev, taking into account the markers laid down by Hostomice, so here goes:

• 70% Munich
• 15% Bohemian Pilsner
• 10% CaraMunich I
• 5% Carafa III Special
• 25 IBUs Saaz for 60 minutes
• 13 IBUs Saaz for 30 minutes
• 2 IBUs Saaz for 5 minutes
• Saflager 34/70 Yeast

My aim would be to keep to 14°, as that seems to be the sweet spot of the modern tmavé, including the direct inspiration for Morana - the much missed Kout na Šumavě.

There is, however, a question that keeps pottering through my mind, and I am being vaguely cynical with this question. As I plan to get back into entering homebrew competitions this year, do I enter this particular beer in the Czech dark lager category or do I take my lead from Hostomice and enter it as a Munich Dunkel, given the phrase that this is a dark beer "of the Bavarian type"? 

Fuggled Beer of the Year

Having whittled down my long lists to short lists, we come to the final beer list of my annual review, the winners of the three categories. To recap then, the winning beers were:

• Pale - Fabián 10° - Pivovar Hostomice, CZ
• Between Orange and Brown - Tabolcloth - Selvedge Brewing/Tabol Brewing, Virginia
• Dark - Sláinte - Three Notch'd Brewing, Virginia

I knew when I was planning my trip to Prague that I would find the necessary time to get round to Pivovarská Nelevarna, the city tap for Pivovar Hostomice. I knew that I wanted to introduce my friends to what I think of as one of my favourite pubs on the planet, as well as, in my unhumble opinion, the best lagers in the Czech Republic. That Fabián 10° took the plaudits as the Fuggled Pale Beer of the Year was pretty much a shoe-in. My friends and I went to Pivovarská Nelevarna the night before we all had to head back to our parts of the world, met up with Evan as well, and drank exceedingly liberal amounts of desítka. Moreish, redolent with Czech Saaz hops, a nice bready malt body, and a finish that is both crisp and soft at the same time - don't ask me, it's just how it feels. It is drinking sessions like this that make it difficult to bother with desítky when I get back to Virginia because it just highlights to me again that you simply cannot make an authentic Czech style pale lager without the traditional process as much as ingredients. You know what I mean, and nothing will change my mind.

I mentioned in the post for beers between orange and brown, that I had made a mad dash across Charlottesville to try Tabolcloth from the 10 litre stichfaß, managing to snag the very last half litre as it kicked in under an hour. A week later and I was back at Selvedge Brewing to try the regular draft version of this delightful 5% vollbier inspired by Josh's love of Franconia - and not the one in Northern Virginia. Although this was a collaboration between Selvedge and Richmond's Tabol Brewing, there was a difference between the version available in Charlottesville and the one in Richmond. Selvedge had fermented theirs with TUM-35, a recently rediscovered Franconian yeast strain that I find leaves a slightly fuller body and a gently rustic character. I would often imagine drinking Tabolcloth sat in a village beer garden somewhere in the hinterlands of Franconia as I sat with yet another half litre. Tabolcloth was basically my beer of the summer this year, so often did I swing by Selvedge, either on draft or in crowlers for home drinking.

There is something about a regular strength, Irish style stout that I find deeply appealing, and in many ways I am sure this could apply to many of my favourite types of beer. It is deeply unfussy, unpretentious, and yet flavourful and invigorating. There is also something fun about having to order your second pint when you have had a mere mouthful or two of your first, simply so it can get up to the proper temperature. Three Notch'd Sláinte, once suitably warmed, had all the classic roasty flavours you expect from a stout, coffee, dark chocolate, slightly singed toast, and all so beautifully blended together that you could easily forget that it was only 4.2% abv, the medium full body belying it's relative lightness. It is the kind of beer that I wish was more readily available in my local brewery taprooms.

Choosing a single winner from these three beers is, as it seems to be every year, difficult, as were any one of them a permanent feature of drinking central VA, I would likely drink it an awful lot. However, only one of them could actually claim to have been drunk fairly regularly this year, and so the Fuggled Beer of the Year is...Tabolcloth Vollbier from both Selvedge Brewing and Tabol Brewing. It was simply wonderful, and I hope it makes a comeback when Selvedge open up in their new venue in the new year.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Dark

Having meandered through the shades of ochre that makes up the spectrum from orange to brown, we move into the properly dark beer category. Let us then descend into the darkness...

Virginia

• Sláinte - Three Notch'd Brewing, Charlottesville
• Spire City - Wheatland Spring Brewing, Waterford
• London Porter - Superfly Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Break Out Your Wellies - Selvedge Brewing Company; Schwartz Bier - Devils Backbone Brewing, Roseland; Porter - Port City Brewing, Alexandria.

If you lingered around Fuggled for any reasonable length of time, you will no doubt have seen me comment about how Guinness was my first legal beer, on my 1th birthday at the Dark Island Hotel back home on Benbecula. Irish style dry stouts have long been one of my favourite styles, especially when watching the rugby - which this year included the World Cup, in which Scotland got the group from hell (seriously, Ireland AND South Africa in our group). Anyway, Derek, one of the owners of Three Notch'd is from Ireland, and a fellow rugby fan, all round good bloke, and randomly meeting him in a pub back in 2012 still counts as one of my favourite things since living in Charlottesville. So when we met at Three Notch'd to watch Scotland lose heroically to an excellent Ireland side in a magnificent game of running rugby, I was thrilled to see a 4.2% dry stout on tap, and once I had let it warm up to the proper temperature it was magnificent, I might even dare to say on a par with O'Hara's...

Rest of the US

• Schwarz - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT
• Karlův 13° - Schilling Beer Co., Littleton, NH
• Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT

An example of each of the major dark lager styles makes up the final three from the US in the dark beer category, dunkel, tmavé, schwarzbier. But the winner is, in my mind at least, clear. Von Trapp are one of my go-to breweries in general, and when they brought out a schwarzbier as a special release way back in February I was a happy camper. I have long been a fan of the style in general, I prefer the roastiness and dry finish of a schwarzbier to the sweeter finish of a dunkel or the more classic iterations of tmavé. Von Trapp's Schwarz is a little stronger than the Köstritzer, the extra body being very welcome. I hope they release it again soon.

Rest of the World

• 14° Tmavý - Pivovar Hostomice, Hostomice, CZ
• Antidepressant Autumn Dark Lager - Klášterní Pivovar Strahov, Prague, CZ
• Svijanská Kněžna - Pivovar Svijany, Svijany, CZ

A clean sweep for Czech breweries and each of these beers was had with my best friends whilst wandering around Prague in November on an extended birthday shindig. The winner though is the one that I was most excited to see on tap, even though it wasn't listed on the menu when we arrived, is Strahov's lovely Autumn Dark Lager, one of the inspirations for the tmavě I designed for Devils Backbone back in 2010, called Morana. Lots of toasty bread, a subtle bitter cocoa note, and a nice sharp hoppy bite to snap everything back to attention makes this a far too easy to drink beer, and had we not had plans to meet up with friends later that day, I would happily have sat in the brewpub at Strahov and drunk it all afternoon and evening.

Friends and dark beers seems to have been a theme this year, indeed just yesterday I met up with a couple of friends here in Central Virginia, went to watch the Liverpool vs Arsenal match, and had the London Porter from Superfly Brewing mentioned above. The winner also ties in with a sporting event, in this case watching Ireland beat Scotland in the rugby world cup back in the autumn, Three Notch'd Brewing's Sláinte Irish style stout. A fantastic version of one of my go-to styles, and one that I wish were a regular part of the Three Notch'd lineup, especially if there is rugby to watch at the same time.

Fuggled Beers of the Year: Pale

Ah...the first day of two weeks of Yuletide holiday. Time to make mince pies, plan menus for the various festive days, and to wonder if I even bother buying beer given the amount of cider in the alcohol fridges. It is also time for the annual review of the year, which thanks to having managed to get out of the country a couple of times will include both a drinking den and a brewery of the year. As ever though, we start with pale beers, those that are yellow or golden, without veering too much into orange.

Each year I pick the top 3, plus any honorable mentions, in each category, from Virginia, the rest of the United States, and the rest of the world, culminating in an overall beer of the year for a given category. That said, let's crack on:

Virginia

• Kelheim Märzen - Tabol Brewing, Richmond
• Yourn Czech Lager - Devils Backbone Brewing, Nellysford
• Batiste - Selvedge Brewing, Charlottesville

Honorable mentions: Found Artifacts - Wheatland Spring Brewing, Waterford; Pylon Pilsner - Patch Brewing, Gordonsville; How Bout It - Black Narrows Brewing, Chincoteague.; Downright Pilsner - Port City Brewing, Alexandria.

This is always the hardest category to choose from as Virginia brewed pale beers, ok let's be honest, pale lagers, are my go to and so I drink far more of them than anything else. The winner though, and to be frank, choosing from among those three beers is a real challenge as I would happily only drink those beers all year if need be, is the beer that I having driven about 40 miles more than once for. Maybe it is his CEE heritage, maybe it is the well water that is basically an analogue for Plzeň, maybe it is decoction mashing, open fermentation, and extended horizontal lagering. Whatever it is, Jason Oliver at Devils Backbone simply knows how to knock it out of the park when making Czech style pale lagers, and Yourn, a 10° lager, was glorious. Simple as.

Rest of the USA

• Keller Pils - TRVE Brewing, Denver, CO
• Gold - Live Oak Brewing, Austin, TX
• Captain Jack Pilsner - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, Charlotte, NC

Honorable mentions: Überholt - Jack's Abby Craft Lagers, Framingham, MA; Purge Under Pilsner - Savage Craft Brewing, West Columbia, SC; Helles - Von Trapp Brewing, Stowe, VT; Jakobus - Schilling Brewing, Littleton, NH.

I was sat in the winning brewery's tap room, escaping from the heat - being a child of the north Atlantic, I don't do great with hot weather, especially when there is the option of an air-conditioned tap room. I ordered the winning beer, sat at a long trestle style table, and watched as a single tremulous bubble wandered its merry way up the side of the Willibecher glass. I tweeted at the time something along the lines of "proper lager isn't fizzy", and this was a proper, proper lager. I fully expected to crush on Live Oak Pilz when I visited their beer garden and taproom out near Austin airport, but their German style pilsner, Gold, stole my heart, it was everything you could want from a Bavaria style pilsner, and a banger in every sense of the word.

Rest of the World

• Nr. 1 Bríó - Borg Brugghús, Reykjavik, IS
• Fabián 10° - Pivovar Hostomice, Hostomice, CZ
• Únětické Pivo 10° - Únětický Pivovar, Únětice, CZ

Honorable mentions: Tannenzäpfle - Badische Staatsbrauerei Rothaus, Grafenhausen-Rothaus, DE; Icelandic White Ale - Einstök Ölgerđ, Akureyri, IS.

Damn this is hard. While I was in Prague in November, Evan told me that for the first time in well over a century, 12° has overtaken 10° as the most regularly drunk strength of pale lager. My best friend Chris, who I met in Prague many, many years ago, and I though are devotees of the desítka and thus I guess old school. And it is old school that is the only way I can think to separate the pair of desítky, and even then it is decision between an old school village beer hall and an old school urban pivnice. It all comes down to intangibles I guess, and in my mind Hostomice's 10° has a certain rusticity that really appeals to me - I wish there was a better way to explain that, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

Three absolutely world beating beers make the final three for the Fuggled Pale Beer of the Year, and I guess it will come as a surprise to precisely nobody as to which beer walks away with the plaudits and absence of monetary prize. Pivovar Hostomice make, in my as ever unhumble opinion, the best beers that I have ever had in Czechia. If I ever decided to upsticks again and move my family back to Czechia, having a local boozer that sold their beer would be a major plus in deciding where to live. Unfussy, uncomplicated (please don't confuse complicated with complex), and so moreish that day drinking could happily lead into all night drinking, Fabián 10° is beer at its best, not just Czech pale lager at its best.

Fuggled Review of the Year - Breweries

Hark what is that bugle call....? It's the last post, or at least the last review post for 2019. Having looked at the beers themselves, the places I drink them in, so finally we come to the companies that actually make the booze itself. To be listed as one of the regional breweries of the year, said brewery needs to have at least a couple of beers I have had this year, also no honorable mentions. Onward then.

Virginia

• Port City Brewing - Alexandria
• South Street Brewery - Charlottesville
• Alewerks - Williamsburg

Rest of USA

• Sierra Nevada Brewing - CA/NC
• Von Trapp Brewing - VT
• Olde Mecklenburg Brewing - NC

Rest of the World

• Cromarty Brewing - Scotland
• Pivovar Hostomice - CZ
• Schlenkerla - DE

Reviewing that list of breweries, I realise that if I were given that list and told I could only ever drink beer from those 9 breweries then I would never be left wanting for quality beer, so whittling it down to just three is nigh on impossible, but needs must.

• South Street Brewery - Charlottesville
• Von Trapp Brewing - VT
• Pivovar Hostomice - CZ

There really is a clear winner when it comes to my brewery of the year, but first let me point out that each of these breweries makes wonderful pale lagers that I would happily guzzle every day, they also each make dark lagers that I would happily guzzle every day. The winner though is the brewery who do every beer they produce superbly well and who I can drink pretty much whenever I feel like it, so well done to Von Trapp Brewing from Vermont for being the 2019 Fuggled Champion Brewery, and for making all those glorious lagers.

Fuggled Review of the Year - Dark

On third day of Christmas, we move on to the undeniably dark beers of the world, porter, stout, dunkel, tmavé, et al, including some brown ales simply because you can only see though them by holding them up to the light, ah the delights of capricious whimsy. Here are the runners and riders for today.

Virginia

• Porter - Port City Brewing
• No Veto Brown - Three Notch'd Brewing
• Schwartzbier - Devils Backbone

Honorable mentions:

Britchin' Brown - Stable Craft Brewing;

USA

• Dunkel - Von Trapp Brewing, VT
• Dunkel - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, NC
• Narwahl 2018 - Sierra Nevada Brewing, CA/NC

Honorable mentions:

Dunkel - Hofbräuhaus Cleveland, OH; Porter - Sierra Nevada, CA/NC; Trösten - Von Trapp Brewing, VT

Rest of World

• Altbairisch Dunkel - Brauerei Ayinger, DE
• Märzen - Schlenkerla, DE
• Fabián 14° tmavé - Pivovar Hostomice

Honorable mentions:

Oatmeal Stout - Samuel Smiths, England; Black - Belhaven Brewery, Scotland; Urbock - Schlenkerla, DE

Some absolutely glorious beers there, and that is just with the honorable mentions, several of which came very close to breaking into the top three in each regional category. As a devotee of the dark beer arts, I could happily drink just the honorable mentions and be a happy camper, imagine then the ecstasy of only being able to drink the top three. Cutting 9 down to an ultimate three then was insanely difficult as there have been plenty of occasions where I have preferred, for example, Devils Backbone Schwartzbier over Port City Porter, it's so often a question of context.

• Virginia - Porter, Port City Brewing
• USA - Dunkel, Von Trapp Brewing
• Rest of World - Märzen, Schlenkerla

Carrying on the theme of context, it is that factor that decided the winner of the Fuggled Dark Beer of 2019. Drinking a legendary beer in a legendary brewpub in a legendary beer town just cannot be beaten, and so obviously the winner is Schelnkerla Märzen. As I mentioned in my post about drinking in Bamberg, I have loved rauchbier since I first have bottled Schlenkerla in Prague, and I drink a couple of litres of it every month still to this day, so having it on tap was a nigh on religious moment. I didn't expect though for the divine itself to be even more divine, but it was, and I savoured every drop of that holy communion.

Fuggled Review of the Year - Pale

It has been almost a decade since I wrote multiple blog posts for my annual review of drinking. When I was in my thirties, and new to this beer blogging malarky, I even broke down the annual review into seven individual posts. In more recent years passim I have stuck to a single post, list style for pale, amber, dark, pub, and brewery categories. This year though I have travelled a lot more than I have for many years, thus have a lot more options for all the categories and a post for each is, in my unhumble opinion, warranted.

As usual I will decide the top three applicable beers from Virginia, the USA, and the rest of the world, as well noting any honorable mentions. From those finalists I will pick the ultimate winner of the category, and we start today with pale beers.

Virginia

• Downright Pilsner - Port City Brewing
• My Personal Helles - South Street Brewery
• Weekend Lager - Alewerks Brewing

Honorable Mentions:

40 Mile IPA - Three Notch'd Brewing; Lagerboi - Champion Brewing; Striped Bass - Devils Backbone Brewing; Saison - Reason Beer; Helles - Port City Brewing

USA

• Pilz - Live Oak Brewing, TX
• Captain Jack Pilsner - Olde Mecklenburg Brewing, NC
• Helles - Von Trapp Brewing, VT

Honorable Mentions:

Celis White - Celis Brewery, TX; Southern Gothic - Sierra Nevada, CA/NC; Allagash White - Allagash Brewing, ME; Czech Pilsner - Gordon Biersch Atlanta Airport, GA; Lager - Firestone Walker, CA; Play Action Pils - Victory Brewing, PA

Rest of The World

• Fabián 10° - Pivovar Hostomice, Czech Republic
• EPA - Inveralmond Brewery, Scotland
• aU Ungespundet Naturtrüb - Mahr's Bräu, Germany

Honorable mentions:

Břevnovský Benedict - Břevnovský Klášterní Pivovar, CZ; Albrecht 10° - Zámecký pivovar Frýdlant, CZ; Únětické Pivo 10° - Únětický pivovar, CZ; Jarl - Fyne Ales, Scotland; Tennent's Lager - Tennent's, Scotland; König Pilsener - König-Brauerei, DE

Come on admit it, you're really shocked by the prevalence of pale lagers, whether they be helles or pilsner. I have said it many, many times on here, as well as on various social media outlets, lagers are just my thing, and pale lagers are the style of beer I drink more than any other. To whittle this list down further, the regional winners are:

• Virginia - My Personal Helles, South Street Brewing
• USA - Helles, Von Trapp Brewing
• Rest of World - Fabián 10°, Pivovar Hostomice

The overall winner was pretty much decided after four mouthfuls of beer, and I am sure it comes as no surprise that the Fuggled Pale Beer of 2019 is Pivovar Hostomice's simply majestic Fabián 10°. If I may get on my soapbox for a moment, why American brewers seem unwilling to brew sessionable lagers in the vein of the Czechs is frankly a mystery. Sure I get the fact that the Untappd tickers and braggers are unlikely to rate it very highly, but when done to such a high level of craftsmanship, there is simply no better type of beer on the planet. Fabián 10° hits all the right high notes, loads of Czech hop character, with all the fresh lemon zest, spice, and floral notes that implies, behind that sits a decocted malt backbone that no amount of modified malt can replicate, even if a brewer follows a brew by numbers approach to brewing.

Prague - The New

There are few people in the world I enjoy a pint or two with more than Evan Rail.

When he came into Pivovarský klub on my first day back in Prague it was such an unexpected pleasure that it literally made my day, even though it was a fleeting moment that didn't involve us having a beer together, but we agreed to meet later in the week.

In those brief moments Evan mentioned his local pub had some of the best beer in the Czech Republic and we agreed that we would meet there. "There" was a place called Hostomická nalévárna, a hole in the wall taphouse with beer from Pivovar Hostomice, one of the many breweries to have sprung up in the decade since Mrs V and I left the Czech Republic.

Having spent the morning wandering around the Old Town, taking photos, and buying Krtek souvenirs for the twins (they love Krtek so much it does my heart good), I arrived at the pub about 10 minutes early, so naturally got a half litre of Fabián 10°.

Oh my goodness, what nectar is this? Prior to polishing off my first half litre in literally four mouthfuls I would have sworn that Albrecht 10° was my favourite Czech pale lager but this blew it out of the water. The interplay of malt and hop was delightful, neither truly dominating but both clearly evident and expressing themselves fully. Ok, so where I had thought to have a half litre while waiting for Evan, I may have had a couple, I was enthralled, it was like that first taste of Kout na Šumavě 10° way back when.

The pub itself was a throwback as well, it is a proper urban Czech boozer. I could probably, if I were vaguely handy at these sorts of things, recreate it in one half of my garage. The bar is right next to the door, the space around the bar clearly set up for standing around drinking beer. There is a space further back which has four tables, all of which had reservation notices on them, letting us know that we could sit there until 7pm, well past our window of time to hang out, drink, and discuss the state of craft beer.

With a few desítky polished off, I decided to try the 14° tmavé and it was just as lovely. Being thoroughly biased it reminded me a lot of the Morana that I designed and brew occasionally with Devils Backbone. Again notes were not being taken, come on people, who takes beer notes when you are shooting the shit with a friend you haven't seen in years? Then I did something technically illegal under Czech beer law...I asked for a řezané pivo, or black and tan.

According to Czech law, at least if I understand it correctly and I am sure folks will correct me if I am wrong, a řezané must be poured with beers of the same gravity, and there was no 14° pale lager with which to mix with the dark, so we used the 12°. It was delish. Yeah I was getting merry, and that was before the 15° březnový, that's märzen to you, turned up, another magnificent brew. I am not going to go into the details of Evan and I's conversation, which wandered down many a beery lane with a common theme about how US craft breweries simply get "Bohemian pilsner" wrong, and after a few days having my palate reset by the real thing I still haven't had a Czech style lager since I got back, I am afraid of the disappointment.

Eventually Evan needed to head home, and so I picked his brain about where to find beer by the one Czech brewery I had probably heard more about than any other...Únětický pivovar.

Cafe Frida was just round the corner from my hotel. I eschewed the tram for a head clearing half hour walk to discover the place was practically empty, so I took a seat at the bar and ordered a desítka, yep another lovely beer. Perhaps my tastebuds were just plain busted at this point, but while it was clearly a lovely beer, and one I would happily drink all day long, it didn't match up to the Hostomická desítka, though it was more my thing than Albrecht 10°. The 12° was likewise excellent, a superb demonstration of why I think Czechs make the best lagers on the planet bar none, sorry you innovative craft folks, you don't compare to the level of craftmanship on show in the Czech Republic lager world.

Gently pickled and with a bus to Germany to catch in the morning I headed back to Florenc and my shoebox sized hotel room...