A Question of Taste

In many ways the scribblings of a blogger, whether of beer or something else, are easy to create and substantiate. For even the most extreme comment you can find at least one person to back me up and say “I know what you mean”. Swimming against a tide is something I am not really bothered by, and sometimes I am very much aware that I don’t agree with fellow bloggers or beer lovers, about a particular range of beers. It is of course a question of taste.

I don’t hide the fact that I am not a fan of Klášter, for me it is nothing special, nothing to go screaming off to the shop at a great rate of knots to spend my 14kč on a bottle of – that’s 40p/$0.75/€0.50 for my British, American and Eurozone readers respectively. And while it may be a decent enough beer to have from time to time on tap, it is not something I would actively search out.

Last night, I decided to take Mrs Velkyal out for dinner. My wife is a pianist by training and in preparation for our move back to the United States she had just seen her piano of several years taken away to a good home. I knew that it would be better to take her out for a meal and a couple of beers to take her mind off the loss of the Joanna. So I got the address of the new place in Žižkov selling the beers of Pivovarský dvůr Chyně from Pivní Filosof and dragged Mrs V. up the hill for something to eat and drink.

Pivní Filosof has mentioned on his blog that we trekked out to Chyně for lunch a couple of weeks back, with the Everards brewer and his wife who were over in Prague on holiday – I fear taking them to several of Prague’s brewpubs may have turned it into something of a busman’s holiday however. The beers that day really did nothing for me, only the 14° dark held out any hope. Unfortunately our trip to the restaurant in Hotel Victor did little to dispel my apathy towards Chyně. Of the three full beers I had, again only the 14° dark satisfied me, the light of the same strength was too buttery for my tastes; the 10° light beer was thin bodied and to my stout mind insipid. It would be easy for me to dismiss my opinions as the ravings of a stout and ale man if it were not for the fact that I have drunk 10° lagers for most of the last 10 years, and have had several which have a complexity of flavour which would put many stronger beers to shame.

In fairness to Hotel Victor, the food we had was quite nice, decent onion rings although dips of various kinds would be nice, an acceptable goulash and Mrs V’s chicken schnitzel tasted as good as it looked. They also had very pleasant service, the lady working the pumps was friendly, helpful and attentive and those are invaluable attributes in waiting staff. As we waited for the bill I suggested that we head the 200m up to U Slovanský Lipy to finish the night with a couple of Kout na Šumavě beers – admittedly in order to show her the difference between Chyně and Kout, were we ran into Iain and Ian of Pivní Filosof commentary fame.

Over pints of Kout's simply magnificent 14° dark and 12° kvásničák we discussed our various opinions about Chyně and I had to admit that I am simply not a fan, to howls of disbelief. However we soon worked out that the main difference between my opinion and that of various others is that I like beers with a bitter bite. I am, as has been noted, very much a stout, bitter and pale ale drinker. I like my beers to have a good hoppy bite and a full body, Ian (sorry guys can never remember which is which) is my polar opposite, can’t stand bitter or stout and yet loves Chyně. I should however say though it is not that I think their beers are bad, as in Gambrinus bad, but just not my thing.

So yes my opinions are simply that, an answer to the question of my taste.

Fuggled Changes

I have been playing with the idea of creating a top-level domain name for some time now, and as of this morning my dream has been realised!

Ladies and gentleman, allow to introduce the new URL for this blog:

• http://www.fuggled.net/

That will probably be just the first change to happen in the coming weeks and months - I will be messing with the HTML and trying to improve the look of the blog. I am also planning to find somewhere in my pokey flat to take better pictures of the various beers I have at home, so hopefully we'll see an improvement there as well. Another thing I am planning with is getting some kind of logo designed.

I am assured that using the old link will still work, but I think it is probably best if you update your links to the domain name.

Also, if you notice that your blog was once on my blog roll and is no longer then please let me know and I will restore it.

New website about pubs in Prague

As you can see, there is a little picture on here now which links to the following website:

• www.praguebeergarden.com

The website is building into a database of pubs and beers available in Prague, and as such will become a good resource for visitors and locals alike.

And the award for beer name....

When Saruman from The Tale of the Ale suggested this name, it was clearly a case of all bets being off. It was love at first sight, and so the smoked Scottish dark mild (or maybe not from looking at the style guides) will be called:

• Experimental Dark Matter

Saruman's prize? Erm, a bottle of said beer if it tastes alright when he hopefully comes over to Prague sometime in the Spring. If not, then I think the fact I introduced him to a good Hooker should be more than enough!
Being the sad anorak I am (and if any brewers in or around Virginia are reading this and need marketing people then email me!), I spent about 3 or 4 minutes messing around on Word developing a label for the said beer, here is a screenshot.

What's it called?

It was a question I wasn't expecting to be honest. Sat in U Buldoka on Saturday enjoying rather too many of the excellent Zlatá Labuť they had on tap. From my quick scan of the pub, the Zlatá Labuť was outselling the standard Pilsner Urquell by about 5 pints to 1.

"So what is it called?" - simple enough question, but not one I had really considered.

"What is what called?" - you can see my intuitive faculties aren't particularly sharp when I have had a few.

"Your beer, what are you going to call it?" - looks of impatience abound.

"erm...dunno" - great conversationalist me, eh?

So what will I call my first beer? Assuming of course that it isn't some foul tasting disaster. As Loyd Grossman would say when presenting Through the Keyhole, let's look at the evidence:

• based on a dark mild extract
• I used muscovado sugar
• I added (hopefully) smoky flavour and aroma
• fermented using Scottish ale yeast

Some thoughts for names:

• Depths of Darkness
• Highland Speakeasy

Any other suggestions?

Bottle, mini-keg or jerry can?

I spent last night scrubbing bottles. I have had several swing-tops sitting around the flat for a while now in expectation of my first homebrew, so I finally got round to cleaning them thoroughly and letting the labels float off in the hot water.

My batch of beer is a grand total of 8 litres, and I have at the moment only 7 bottles (although I have 2 bottles of Bernard in appropriate bottles), this got me thinking about how I want to serve my beer.

Pivovarský klub sells those 5 litre mini-kegs, so I could buy one of those, fill it - blending one of the beers into the other to make sure it is full, and then bottle the remaining beer. Or, I could buy a jerry can.

Bauhaus is a German home and garden ware chain that has a few branches in Prague, and they sell jerry cans made from food grade plastic which come with a tap on the front. I think the smallest size they have is 10 litres, which would be a bit big I guess, but I could then blend the two beers together, add some extra yeast to do a secondary fermentation and then serve straight from the jerry can.

Alternatively, I could just drink more Bernard, Chodovar and anything that comes in a swing top and bottle everything - green bottles for the 1.040 OG worth and brown for the 1.052 OG.

Thoughts ladies and gentleman please!

Big Dogs Off the Leash

I am, it must be said, a little concerned. Fret not, the yeast hasn't died on me - in fact both fermenters have nice healthy looking krausens on them, and are bubbling away at about 40 little pops a minute. Yes, yes, yes, I know - how sad can a grown man get when he sits and counts how often his homebrew is bubbling, is there a technical term for this? The bubbling I mean, not the counting, I already know the technical term for that.

Wanting to restore some self-respect I decided that the moment had come, the moment I had been putting off and putting off, the time to open a couple of the monster BrewDog bottles that I have picked up lately. Just like Mark over on Pencil and Spoon, I have a habit of looking at bottles, deciding to drink them and then putting them back because I am not sure the occasion is right. Last night I just picked up the bottle and opened it before I could convince myself otherwise - that bottle was Hardcore IPA.


I have written elsewhere about my first run in with IPA from BrewDog, so I knew the vague neighbourhood I would be in with Hardcore, what I didn't know was just how much bigger and more in your face this one was to be. The beer pours a dark amber and the white head didn't last very long, although every time I would swirl the glass there would be a nice fresh head. The nose was sweet citrus all over the place, grapefruit mainly and lots of it, and the first taste was a bitterness explosion but backed up with a smooth, soothing, toffee like sweetness. American style IPAs are something new to me, and the more I try the more I like.


Emboldened by my impulsive opening of one big hitter, I reached in and pulled out a bottle of the 12%ABV Tokyo. I have heard great things about this beer from Evan, so my expectations were high. As a stout should be, this was a black hole - no light getting through at one, and the nose was alcoholic and roasted and peaty and like molasses (Mrs Velkyal stuck her nose in and instantly said "is this a BrewDog?" - brand recognition!), drool, drool. The first thing to strike home when I tasted it was the flavour of oak and vanilla, not surprising as it was aged on French oak chips, that coupled with the warming alcohol put me in mind of Paradox, but without the whisky element. The more I drank the more complex it became, a strong spiciness and yet a freshness in the finish which I am putting down to the cranberries. Definitely a sipping beer, one where you revel in each and every mouthful.

The only thing missing last night was being back in the Highlands, sat in a deep leather armchair while an Atlantic gale lashes the house and the peat fire glows in the hearth and the deerhound sits at my feet.