The Reader Contest’s First Winners

The world seems to have gone beer-haiku crazy: just 24 hours after our month-long reader contest was announced and we’ve already spawned a lengthy and very funny beer-haiku thread at Ratebeer, got a shout-out from Nunc Scio (cool) and the always-excellent Beer Haiku Daily (those guys are pros) and been challenged to a beer-poetry-contest-contest by A Good Beer Blog.

And we already have our first winners.

Our very first entry comes from James Gogarty in Roztoky u Prahy, who ponders one of life’s great beer mysteries: foam or no foam?

Europeans give,
those bloody Britons do not,
a full inch of head.

I like it when we talk about the deep stuff. James wins the bottle of beer shower gel from Manufaktura.

There are three winners so far in the rhyming division. The first rhymed entry and an automatic winner is from Michael Halligan, whose work describes the mood-elevating affects of great Czech lagers:

Tap handle pulled down
pouring luscious liquid out
smile out of a frown

Michael gets an A for effort and the Budweiser Budvar mouse pad. Send us your mailing address, hoss.

The next winner comes from Martin Thibault of Montreal, Canada, who celebrates the legendary king of Flanders and the namesake of the other beer from Pilsen, as well as the annual holiday for the rest of us:

Avé Gambrinus
For this soulful Světlé and
Tmavé Festivus

For incorporating words from Latin, Czech and Seinfeld, Martin wins the talking Budweiser Budvar bottle opener pictured above. (“Yeahhh!”)

A slew of nice haiku arrived from Matěj Novák of Toronto, Canada. The best four:

Homer says, “Mmm, beer,”
then goes to Moe’s for a few,
causing Marge to sneer.

Ale, lager, porter
and stout. The others I’ll get
to in short order.

Five syllables then
seven, then five more about
beer: a beer haiku.

I drink, therefore I
am drunk. I drink beer, therefore
I pee frequently.

Matěj is a former coworker and a close friend, but I believe the last entry overcomes any fear of favoritism. Matěj wins a special prize TBD.

For the following rounds, Prague’s Pivovarský klub has promised a bunch of beer glasses from regional Czech breweries as well as shirts, gift certificates and other goodies. Many thanks to Pivovarský klub, to Budweiser Budvar and to Pivovar Bašta for all the prizes donated so far. And special thanks to Staropramen, who has just offered to send out complete prize packets including Staropramen T-shirts, baseball caps and bottle openers for three of the the next lucky winners.

NEWS FLASH: Pivovarský klub will be closed for a private party on the evening of Thursday, March 6 (tomorrow), so don’t try to go there then. But do visit anytime on or after Friday, March 7, as they currently have the wonderful Märzen from Pivovarský dům on draft and will soon tap the Easter honey lager from Opat, as well as U Medvídků’s new plum beer, described by Max Bahnson over at Pivní Filosof.

Between starting this post and putting it up, I’ve received another set of beer haiku, many of which are absolutely outstanding. Stay tuned for more winners following a post about the weirdest beer museum in Prague.