Pilsner and Primátor

I popped into PK last night and proceeded to horrify the staff by ordering a mineral water - I was out on Wednesday night and really didn't feel like more beer. Interesting news though for fans of Pilsner Urquell is that PK currently has the unfiltered version available, and to quote my friend who was drinking it "that is a completely different beer!". They also have the Purkmistr dark on tap as well, so well worth getting along to try them.

Next week however, U Radnice in Žižkov is having a special week of beers from Primátor and according to the board outside the pub they will have the following:

• English Pale Ale
• Stout
• Weizen
• 13° Polotmavý - their excellent amber lager
• 16° Exklusiv - a strong pale lager
• 21° Rytířský - a very strong pale lager
• 24° Double - a whopping 10.5%ABV Baltic Porter

There were possibly some others but I can't remember them off the top of my head. Definitely not a bad start to my minimum two months of leisure as a victim of the credit crunch.

A Promise

I am really looking forward to moving to the USA, as may be obvious. There are many things I have plans to do, having a Wendy's Baconator (3 burgers, 3 slices of cheese, topped with crispy bacon - heaven) for a start.

One thing I have promised myself when we are living there is to not limit my beer drinking to the craft brewing scene, although I am sure it will be the overwhelming majority of what I drink. I will also re-discover Budweiser, the various Michelob beers and whatever else sells big. When I was at college I would sometimes enjoy a Bud Ice on the days when I didn't feel like a Caffrey's or a Guinness - my then beers of choice.

When Mrs V and I were in the States in 2007 we tried Michelob Amber Bock, which I quite enjoyed and am keen to re-evaluate in the light of greater experience, and see if it is still refreshing when in the heat of Daytona Beach.

Just as I had to give credit where it was due with the Gambrinus Excelent, I simply don't want to become a craft beer fundamentalist unable to look beyond the name on the bottle to what is actually in the bottle.

Picture Time

Just a few pictures I took on my mobile phone recently

U Slovanské lipy - probably my favourite Prague boozer.

Kwak - nice glass, nothing special in it to be honest.

Zvíkov Raspberry beer - I wonder why brewers bother with this stuff sometimes, not awful just dull

My favourite kind of Kocour glass - an empty one, with a fresh one on the way.

Not Much To Celebrate

Friday afternoon saw the grand opening of the Czech Beer Festival here in Prague, an event which is scheduled to last until this Sunday - as Pivní Filosof has already mentioned on his blog, himself, Evan and I, along with Mrs V, went up for the beginning of an event which bills itself as "the largest gastronomic event in the Czech Republic", and we were not unduly impressed by what we saw:

• 5 tents out of 6 with no beer (is it a coincidence that the "media tent" had beer?)
• a general unavailability of the festival's currency, the tolar
• a general lack of organisation

These things eventually got sorted out, but we waited nearly an hour and a half for our first beers. However, I think there are bigger problems with the festival than just poor organisation.

Firstly, the event lacks a back story - why does it exist? Why at this time of the year? It seems that somebody had the bright idea of putting a few big tents up in a field (a very wet field on Friday) and selling beer, and that's the extent of its raison d'être. I am sure that this comparison is not entirely fair, but from the get go Oktoberfest has had a clearly defined reason, to celebrate the marriage of the then Crown Prince Ludwig in 1810.

Also as part of the back story, it would be interesting, at least for geeks like me, to have the tolar explained - why that particular name? For those who have never seen the Connections TV series, a tolar, or "thaler", was a silver coin minted in the town of Joachimsthal, modern Jachýmov in northern Bohemia. Whilst on the issue of the tolars, which is a very good idea, whoever set the cost of a tolar at 40kč must be living in cloud cuckoo land. Each and every beer at the festival costs 1 tolar, regardless of brand, size or alcholic content, thus 0.3l of Primátor Weizen costs the same as a half litre of their Stout even though it is only 0.2% stronger.

Possibly though I biggest gripe about the event is the sheer dullness of the beer selection. Don't get me wrong, it is great to see the likes of Kout na Šumavě, Primátor and Rampušák at the event, but other than Primátor's Stout, Weizen and English Pale Ale, what was really on offer? Large amounts of pale golden lager, and not much else. Yes, Kout and Rampušák are good beers, but come on guys do something different and encourage me to part with my tolar, especially galling when just round the corner I can get Kout for 20kč! Perhaps the organisers of the event could include a condition for participation that each brewer has to make a special festival beer, with a different style selected every year? In 2010, along with all the golden lager, how about getting everyone to brew a bock for example, thus encouraging brewers to innovate, and consumers to experiment.

An event like the Czech Beer Festival could be so much more than it currently is, unfortunately it is nothing special and not something I would recommend people to bother with - rather I would give them a list of pubs with the same beers at reasonable prices to go to. If I compare it to an event like Slunce ve Skle, then it really has a long way to go before it matches up.

Herold Wheat Beer, Contender?

I was right royally bored out of my mind on Thursday afternoon.

Mrs Velkyal was at work and I had done everything that needed doing that day, so I bought myself a copy of the Guardian and headed to Lipy for some Kout na Šumavě and to see if I could complete the crossword quicker than usual - 12 minutes is my average (and yes I mean the quick crossword in G2, cryptic crosswords are not something I excel at).

With the crossword done, I arranged to meet Mrs V at Pivovarský klub for dinner as I simply couldn't be bothered with going to the shop and cooking, plus I had a craving for some Primátor weizen, but they didn't have it on tap that day, rather their weizen of choice was the born again Herold wheat beer.


As you can see from the picture, although it is from my mobile, it looks like a fairly standard weizen. Indeed, it smells and tastes exactly as you would expect from a bog standard weizen, bananas, cloves and so on. Nothing special really in my book, but not bad either - a perfectly acceptable wheat beer and it is great to see more choice for beer drinkers here, but on this form not likely to cause Primátor any sleepless nights.

Re-fermenting in the Bottle?

I took yesterday and today off in order to apply for and collect my immigrant visa, which I did this morning. After filing my application yesterday, I pottered off home to decide what to do with myself for the rest of the day.

Now I must confess that I have a bad habit, I like to check on my homebrew regularly - well ok then, every time I get home, I pop my head into the room it is kept in just to make sure nothing has gone awry. Yesterday I picked up one of the bottles and noticed a little foam on top of the beer so of course I checked the swing top to make sure it was secure, which it was.

I had a quick look at the other bottles in the batch, and all of them seemed to have a little foam on top. This morning though most of the foam had gone and things were back to normal.

I am assuming that the priming sugar was simply being eaten by the remaining yeast in the beer, and that nothing drastic has happened.

Any thoughts?

A Taste of Things To Come

On Saturday night Mrs Velkyal and I went for dinner and beers with some friends of ours, who I took great delight in introducing to the wonderful 11° kvasnicové lager from Pivovarský dvůr Zvíkov. As our friends had just returned from Virginia they brought back a bottle of local beer for me to try, thus it was I got my hands on some Starr Hill Pale Ale - Starr Hill are soon to be one of my local breweries and I am very much looking forward to getting to grips with their full range.


Anyway, to the beer. It pours a rich copper colour, slightly darker than amber, and the head is white but rather thin and disappeared a bit quickly, although a little remained doggedly until the end of the drink. Being an American Pale Ale (a style of beer thankfully that I am really starting to get into!) the nose was very much full of citrus, with a slight touch of pine resin. Up front this beer is very bitter, although it has a delightfully honeyed undertone which stops it from being the equivalent of sucking lemons. The finish is dry and long, and the beer is very refreshing. In many ways this beer reminded me of my favourite pale ale, Galway Hooker - high praise indeed.


So my first beer from Charlottesville (well ok then, technically Crozet but I believe they started in CVille) has given me great encouragement, and will almost certainly be a staple beer in the fridge as it is full of flavour and yet very easy to drink.