Evan Rail – Page 12 – Beer Culture

Czech Beer in Vietnam — Kinda

On March 19, 2008

Czech beer has inspired imitations, reproductions and outright ripoffs around the globe. There’s the world-wide use of the term Pilsner, which is only applied to one beer in the country of its birth. At least two beers from Anheuser-Busch have taken Czech names, only one of which is Budweiser. (Who’s quick enough to tell me the second?)

Way out in Utah there’s the Bohemian Brewery, founded by a family of Czech émigrés, which joins National Bohemia from Maryland, Bohemia from Mexico, and Sagres Bohemia from Portugal. And then there’s this.

More from Prague’s Salesian Beer Museum

By Evan Rail

On March 18, 2008

In Beer Travel, News and Rumors

Here are a few more photos from Prague’s Salesian Beer Museum, an “accidental” collection of more than 2,000 bottles, 4,000 beermats and the weird, beer-themed collectibles known as breweriana, many of which come from the Czech lands.

Looking through the shelves, I was struck by how much evidence these artifacts provide for the way people here once lived, as well as a contrast to the way we live now. One of the most interesting items in the collection is the advertising placard (above) for the Měšťanský pivovar na Královských Vinohradech, the brewery in the Vinohrady neighborhood which ran from 1893 to 1943, along with scores of other beer makers once working in the Czech capital. In a sign of changing priorities, the Vinohrady brewery has recently been converted into luxury apartments.

So we don’t need historic breweries — we need plush digs. But our old beer culture had at least one advantage: much better graphic design, as witnessed by the museum’s collection of unusual beermats.

Budweiser Budvar Privatization News

By Evan Rail

On March 13, 2008

In News and Rumors

There’s more news in the Budvar privatization saga: the Czech government’s tender for an adviser is now complete, with the contract going to the Prague law firm of Kříž & Bělina, as the Prague Daily Monitor reported yesterday, via Hospodářské noviny (subscription required). Kříž & Bělina will help the Czech government take the initial step toward privatization, that of turning Budvar into a joint-stock company.

Though the path forward remains unclear, we now know four of the parties stumbling down it: the Czech government, Budvar, Kříž & Bělina and, inevitably, Anheuser-Busch, described in the article as “considered the most serious bidder in the privatisation.” The article also takes a stab in the dark at Budvar’s worth, suggesting 1 billion dollars or perhaps even 1 billion euros.

Why so much? Well, it’s not what Budvar sells, currently just 1.25 million hectoliters of high-grade lager per year. It’s what Budvar’s regional rights to the name Budweiser might keep Anheuser-Busch from selling.

Slovak Beers: Steiger and Kaltenecker

By Evan Rail

On March 12, 2008

In Beer Tastings, News and Rumors

After the big breakup known as the Velvet Divorce, Slovak beers were rarely seen in this half of the former Czechoslovakia, and the old Czech prime minister once commented that Slovak brews weren’t even fit for cleaning teeth. So it seems meaningful that Slovak beers have started appearing in Prague recently, from Kaltenecker’s ginger and dark lagers at the Christmas Beer Markets to the bottles of Steiger popping up at Pivovarský klub.

These bottles, however, are not intended for Slovakia’s former federal partners here in the Czech Republic, but instead are designed to entice customers in the German-speaking markets. (Yes, that is a scratch-off bra and panties covering the model on Steiger’s “Premium Helles,” or světlý ležák to you and me. Lest you think that they’re playing upon Slavic stereotypes, not all of the labels feature blondes — there’s at least one redhead.)

Pre-Lager Brewing in Bohemia

By Evan Rail

On March 11, 2008

In News and Rumors

Almost exclusively, Czech brewing means lagers, beers produced with bottom-fermenting lager yeasts at colder temperatures and over longer periods of time. Today, some 95% of Czech production is composed of golden lagers, while about 5% is dark lager. The few beers made with top-fermenting yeasts — ales and wheat beers, brewed at warmer temperatures and usually over shorter periods of time — now make up less than one half of one percent of Czech production. And yet just a little over 140 years ago, ales and wheat beers were still the standard here.

But then came a change in Czech brewing which was so sudden and so severe that it counted as news even on the other side of the world. An article in the New York Times of December 3, 1876, detailed the “complete revolution” in brewing that was then taking place in Bohemia, the western half of today’s Czech Republic, noting the shift away from what it calls “high fermentation” breweries (meaning ales) to the new, “low fermentation” breweries (producing lagers). As the article shows, the arrival of lagers was swift and merciless, killing off more than 260 ale breweries between 1860 and 1870 in Bohemia alone.

The Salesian Beer Museum

By Evan Rail

On March 6, 2008

In Beer Travel, News and Rumors

Today’s trash is tomorrow’s treasure, and nowhere is this truism more applicable than in the field of culinary anthropology: if you don’t take your bottles out quickly, they’ll soon form a big, stinking mess. But if you wait long enough, that pile of recycling could become a priceless collection of art, as well as a storehouse of historical information about the way we live and what we consume. This, effectively, is what happened at the Salesian Beer Museum in Prague.

Properly known as the Salesians of Don Bosco, the Salesians are a Roman Catholic religious order known for their work with young people, running community centers and outreach programs around the world. In Prague, they have a youth center at Kobyliské náměstí, a beautiful functionalist complex housing a theater, soccer fields, basketball courts, a climbing wall and rehearsal spaces for young musicians. In the middle of all this is the Salesian Beer Museum, an almost accidental collection of historic bottles, labels, openers, cans and beermats from the Czech Republic and around the world.

Due to a growing interest in breweriana, I made an appointment to visit the collection last week. I was shown around by Brother Antonín Nevola, the center’s director and the founder of the museum.

The Reader Contest’s First Winners

By Evan Rail

On March 5, 2008

In News and Rumors

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.

The Beer Culture Reader Contest

By Evan Rail

On March 4, 2008

In News and Rumors

Tempus fugit, amigos: Beer Culture has been live for eleven and a half weeks and we’re now serving 6,500 page views per month, spreading the word about beer culture in the Czech Republic and Central Europe to 65 countries so far. As a means of promoting Czech brewing and saying thanks, we’re announcing a big beer-themed giveaway, by which we mean a reader contest.

But first, it is time for haiku.

That is to say the art form known as beer haiku. I first encountered the beast on the beermats (above) created by David Wheatley for the excellent Whalebone brewpub up in Hull. David is a friend, so when the mats were published he sent along a set; the poems were also included in his latest collection, Mocker. A favorite:

A pub is a boat.
It sails on froth. Each pint pulled
helps keep it afloat.

As it turns out, beer and haiku go along so well that some people even write beer haiku daily. Thus, our first reader contest: write a haiku with a beer theme and send it to the email address of Good Beer Guide Prague and the Czech Republic (also known as GBGPrague@gmail.com). If it’s good enough, your entry could win one of the excellent prizes donated by some of our favorite Czech breweries and pubs, including shirts, glassware and more.

Herewith the rules.

Pilsner Urquell in Germany

By Evan Rail

On February 28, 2008

In News and Rumors

Radio Prague has a piece on a story that made headlines here this week: Pilsner Urquell is now cheaper in Germany than in the Czech Republic. I performed the role of the talking head in the story, a complicated mess of pricing, market share and currency fluctuations which ultimately boils down to the following:

Pilsner Urquell is now cheaper in Germany than in the Czech Republic.

Not everything I said made it into the web version, and there were quite a few things I didn’t get to mention before the interview ended. One part that got cut off from my take on the German appreciation for Pilsner Urquell was the fact that German Pilsner-style beers use a place name as an adjective in connection with the word, such as “Bamberger Pilsner,” in homage and in deference to the original.

However, I did get to mention something that has been bugging me for a while: Heineken is being promoted in the Czech Republic at the expense of quality local beers.

Nonalcoholic Beers

By Evan Rail

On February 27, 2008

In Beer Tastings, News and Rumors

Though the Czech Republic’s overall beer output rocked an all-time high of over 20 million hectoliters (12 million barrels) last year, growth is slowing as it hits the top of the arch. One category is still rocketing forward, however: nonalcoholic beer. In 2007, production of Czech nonalcoholic beer fully doubled from the year before, hitting half a million hectoliters of fine-to-drive lager containing .5% alcohol by volume or less.

That’s quite a change from just a few years ago, when nonalcoholic beer was rarely seen. Now nearly everyone offers nealkoholické pivo in bottles, and several varieties are even available on draft, with more versions showing up every month: Svijany introduced its nonalcoholic beer in 2006; Chodovar sent out its brew in 2007. Growth appears in every corner of the country: Litovel’s nonalcoholic beer production jumped 57% in 2007; Primátor expanded its distribution of NA beer by 65% from the year before; Budvar grew its sales of nealkoholické pivo by 55% last year.

Two reasons for the pick up:

1 . The Czech Republic has a zero-tolerance policy for drinking and driving. (It might be flouted, but that is the law.)

2. Some Czech nonalcoholic beers actually taste good.

Beer Culture

Stories about great beer from the countries that invented it.

Author: Evan Rail (Page 12 of 15)

Czech Beer in Vietnam — Kinda

More from Prague’s Salesian Beer Museum

Budweiser Budvar Privatization News

Slovak Beers: Steiger and Kaltenecker

Pre-Lager Brewing in Bohemia

The Salesian Beer Museum

The Reader Contest’s First Winners

The Beer Culture Reader Contest

Pilsner Urquell in Germany

Nonalcoholic Beers

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