News and Rumors – Page 2

Each year, the Czech Republic consumes the most beer per capita, regularly hitting around 160 liters for every Czech man, woman and child. But how does that compare to other countries?

The visualization above is part of a 12-nation comparison from Snippets.com, and re-posted here with kind permission. Each glass depicts the relative annual beer consumption per person for the specified countries, using data from a 2004 report by the Japanese brewer Kirin, whose retro recipes we noted earlier.

Here’s how the 12 nations stack up:

The End of Kelt

By Evan Rail

On July 15, 2009

In News and Rumors

kllt

The big news last week: pivni.info (and others) reported that Pivovary Staropramen, the Anheuser-Busch InBev powerhouse in the Czech Republic, was cutting Kelt.

Marketed under the tag line “[the] strength in us,” and said to be “born of the original Celtic recipe,” Kelt was one of many products that played upon the Czech Republic’s affinity for things Gaelic. (If you’ve ever seen the slightly confused, kilt-wearing hibernophiles in Prague, you know what I’m talking about.) Bohemia, after all, is named after the Boii, a Celtic tribe who were resident here in Roman times. The Czechs love beer long time. Why shouldn’t they have their own domestic version of Guinness?

U Medvídků’s 1466 Pale Lager

By Evan Rail

On June 25, 2009

In Beer Tastings, News and Rumors

u-med

From the “Stories that Got Away” file: the great Prague pub U Medvídků is known for a couple of things. One is the never-ending supply of Budweiser Budvar rolling out in the cavernous beer hall downstairs. And for the past few years, the place has been hailed for its top-shelf — albeit tiny — brewpub upstairs, which makes limited amounts of a couple of great beers: the outstanding Oldgott lager and the extra-strong X-33 beer, a bottom-fermented beer that resembles a barley wine, both in its level of alcohol (12.6%) and its syrupy texture.

Both of those beers, however, are amber. If you wanted a pale lager — the country’s most popular style — or if you felt like a dark beer at U Medvídků, you could only have Budweiser Budvar. But that’s changed.

Pražský Most u Valšů

By Evan Rail

On June 4, 2009

In Beer Tastings, News and Rumors

prazski_mostly

Sometimes it takes a while for a beer or a brewery to find high gear. A year ago, when the new Prague brewpub Pražský most u Valšů first tapped its own brew, it didn’t make quite the same splash as Pivovar Bašta a few months earlier. Only one beer was available, a traditional pale lager, and it didn’t do much for people who care about good Czech beer. Max Bahnson said it was nothing to write home about. I had the same impression, in as much as I stopped by, ate lunch, tried the beer, and didn’t even bother writing about it.

What a difference a year makes. Now there are two beers available, and at least one of them’s a firecracker.

Heineken: A Traditional Czech Beer

By Evan Rail

On May 26, 2009

In News and Rumors

heineken

AUTHOR’S NOTE: It now appears that Heineken did not apply for the “Czech Beer” designation for its own brew, but rather on the part of Krušovice. This post has been corrected.

Today’s Prague Daily Monitor has a translation of a story from the Czech newspaper Hospodářské Noviny on the first beers to use the České Pivo (“Czech Beer”) label. Officially approved by the EU last autumn, the label is a mark of Protected Geographical Indication that indicates minimal levels of local products, traditional methods of production, and the beer’s place of origin.

And the first brand listed in the story is Heineken.

Czech Beer Festival and More

By Evan Rail

On May 25, 2009

In News and Rumors

beer_fes

On Friday, the Czech Beer Festival kicked off at Letňany exhibition grounds (last year’s version is pictured above). It’s fair to say that there was some chaos at the opening: when Velký Al from Fuggled and I arrived a half hour after things got started at 3 p.m., there was only one beer available on tap. Tent #6, which was supposed to have Kout and other indies, had nothing going. Nor did any other tent besides #3. It sounds impossible: at a beer festival, beer fans were going thirsty.

But within an hour or so, the situation righted itself. Several great beers from Náchod’s Pivovar Primátor started flowing, including the brewery’s new 11° pale lager. Within a short while we were even sampling Kout na Šumavě 10°, a desítka with as much character as most 12° beers in these parts.

It’s very different from last year’s festival in that there is no entry fee. Most beers are 40 crowns, though this year the strong beers, like Jihlava’s 18° Jihlavský Grand, are served in .3-liter glasses, which makes far more sense than serving them by the pint. You definitely should check it out before the festival closes on May 31.

But there’s more.

While You Were Out: The Return of Herold’s Wheat Beer

By Evan Rail

On May 15, 2009

In News and Rumors

You hit the road for a few days of peace and solitude in South Bohemia and what happens? A great beer that has been AWOL for years suddenly returns to the scene.

The brew in question is the very nice wheat beer from Pivovar Herold, a brewery I pass each time I drive down to my wife’s family’s summer home in Písek. As I’ve mentioned before, the history of the brewery in the town of Březnice is covered in Ludvík Fürst’s monograph “Jak se u nás vařilo pivo” (or “How we used to brew beer”). In that book, Fürst quotes documents mentioning the production of wheat beer at Březnice in the sixteenth century. When Herold reintroduced its modern wheat beers in 2002, they were the only Czech wheat beers available in bottles at the time.

BrewDog's Zeitgeist vs. Herold Bohemian Black Lager

By Evan Rail

On April 16, 2009

In Beer Tastings, News and Rumors

zeitgeistherold

A while back I tried BrewDog’s prototype Zeitgeist beer, a dark lager “taking inspiration from the Czech classics.” That line gave me the idea of trying it against three classic Czech dark lagers, coffee-like black beers which generally finish on the sweet side.

But the Zeitgeist (or Zeit Geist, as it was back then) seemed to be made of different material, so to speak: I liked it, but as I wrote then, “I don’t think it tasted very Czech… Zeit Geist was far more dry in the finish.” And I added that if I had known it was a dry dark beer, like a Schwarzbier, I would have tasted it with Herold Bohemian Black Lager, one of the only dry dark lagers the Czechs produce.

Later, I found out that Herold was in fact the very inspiration for Zeitgeist. And then came the word that Zeitgeist was going into full production and wide release in Britain. So once I got a copy of the production brew, I decided to compare that to the originals, both prototype and paragon.

Heineken in Talks to Buy Staropramen

By Evan Rail

On April 7, 2009

In News and Rumors

heineken

The St. Louis Business Journal is reporting that Anheuser-Busch InBev is negotiating with Heineken to sell its Czech brands to the Dutch brewer. The paper places Staropramen’s valuation between $255 million and $306 million.

We’ve seen this before. Almost exactly a year ago, Heineken’s takeover of the Czech Drinks Union brands was given the green light. That move pushed Heineken into third place on the Czech market, just ahead of the legendary Budweiser Budvar, but still lower than Heineken’s traditional market share. At the time, Ron Pattinson sagely noted that Heineken doesn’t enter a market to take third place.

Pivovarský Klub Goes Nonsmoking

By Evan Rail

On March 23, 2009

In News and Rumors

pivoklubbb

This weekend, on the first day of spring, something remarkable happened at one of Prague’s favorite destinations for beer lovers: the staff at Pivovarský klub put away the ashtrays for the last time.

So why is a nonsmoking pub in Prague such a big deal?

Beer Culture

Stories about great beer from the countries that invented it.

Category: News and Rumors (Page 2 of 8)

A Visualization of Beer Consumption By Country

The End of Kelt

U Medvídků’s 1466 Pale Lager

Pražský Most u Valšů

Heineken: A Traditional Czech Beer

Czech Beer Festival and More

While You Were Out: The Return of Herold’s Wheat Beer

BrewDog's Zeitgeist vs. Herold Bohemian Black Lager

Heineken in Talks to Buy Staropramen

Pivovarský Klub Goes Nonsmoking

You should read my newest Kindle Single, “The Meanings of Craft Beer.”

Get “Why Beer Matters,” the best-selling essay on the world’s best-loved beverage:

Buy “In Praise of Hangovers,” selected by Amazon as one of the best books of the year so far:

Pages

Tags

Other Blogs You Might Enjoy