Tasting it at the Krušovická pivnice on Národní in Prague, I found it to be quite pretty, pouring a cloudy, very pale gold with a loose white head. The aromas briefly touched on clove with none of the conspicuous banana notes of some other Weizens; I thought I got a whiff of Band-Aid, though certainly not too much. The mouthfeel was slightly thin with more wheat than barley notes. Though it was served too cold at a pale-lager temperature, it came through pretty well, easily picking up 3 or more points on a basic 5-point scale, and definitely worth trying more than once.

It seems to fall more on the light/acidic side of Hefeweizen, rather than towards the heavy/sweet versions: in Czech terms, closer to Primátor Weizenbier than Herold Bohemian Wheat. In many ways, it’s just a classic take on the style: originally brewed at a gravity of 12.3°, resulting in 5.2% alcohol by volume, using both hop pellets and hop extract, though finishing with minimal hop presence.

You’re walking down the street in Prague, completely minding your own, when your eye hangs on a sign announcing a new beer. What stops you is an apparent error in the picture: instead of barley, the poster is adorned with what seems to be wheat.

Called Dožínkové pivo, the Czech Republic’s newest wheat beer started to show up at pubs around the country this week. There are two surprising things about the appearance of a new wheat beer in Bohemia, not the least of which is the brewery making it. (Drumroll, please…)

First, the early word is that this beer is made by Heineken-owned Krušovice. Unless Dožínkové pivo is a total disaster, this move is going to earn them love from local craft beer fans even beyond the repair they seem to have done to the now-drinkable Krušovice Černé.

Second, Dožínkové pivo is only the second new Czech wheat I’ve heard about in the past 20-odd hours. Fans of Černá Hora might like to know that the makers of 1530 and Black Hill are coming out with their own wheat beer, Velen.

That’s a doubling of Czech wheat beers (beyond brewpub offerings), from two to four, just this summer. Actually, before the return of Pivovar Herold’s wheat beer this spring, only the well-loved wheat beer from Primátor was widely available in this country, meaning we’ve gone from one to four in just six months.

I saw Dožínkové pivo at the Krušovická pivnice on Národní 7 in Prague; it’s apparently available at a few other Starobrno and Krušovice pubs around. The big question, of course, is how does it taste?

Quitting time’s in about an hour and 20 minutes. I’ll let you know after that.

Although I believe in the importance of local ownership for breweries, I’m not totally convinced that that local owners are always better owners. Sometimes local owners can screw things up. Sometimes foreign owners can improve things. Look at what happened with Krušovice Černé, the legendary black lager from the brewery once owned by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II.

Pivovar Krušovice passed through many hands over the centuries, including foreigners like the Habsburg Emperor himself. Probably founded in 1517 when the local lords were granted brewing rights, it is first mentioned in print in 1581 as the property of Jiří Bírka z Násile, who had moved his brewery from Rakovník to a farm in nearby Krušovice, according to the history at Pivovary.info. In 1583 it was purchased from Jiří Bírka z Násile by Rudolph for 11,500 Meissner kopa, thus becoming the property of the Czech Crown, later falling into the hands of Bohemia’s Valdštejn and Fürstenberk noble families until after the war. It was nationalized by the Communists in 1948.

I’ve been told by brewers that, under Communism, Pivovar Krušovice produced pale lagers of such quality that they could — and probably did — pass for Pilsner Urquell on the export market. Krušovice Černé was certainly revered by people who know good beer. But something happened after the Velvet Revolution, while the brewery was under the ownership of Binding Brauerei group, part of the Dr. Oetker frozen-pizza and processed-food empire. As I put it in Good Beer Guide Prague and the Czech Republic, the beers sucked.

Part of that suck was the use of artificial ingredients, which, if I remember correctly, included both E150a, or caramel coloring, and E954, saccharine, in Krušovice Černé, which resulted in a medicinal, sickly sweet finish. So it was to my surprise when I tasted one recently for the first time in a while and found that I liked it plenty. The finish didn’t seem too sweet anymore. On draft at the Krušovická pivnice at Národní 7 in Prague, the beer had enough cola, coffee, spice and licorice notes that I stopped to pick up a bottle on the way home that night.

And then I read the ingredients. “Water, barley malt, hops, hop extract, yeast.” No E150a. No E954. Not even any E300, or ascorbic acid, another common additive in Czech beers.

So Krušovice Černé is once again made without artificial colorings and sweeteners and seems better off for it. The big difference between now and then is yet another change of ownership: Pivovar Krušovice was purchased by Heineken in June of 2007. The Dutch giant might not be everyone’s favorite international brewing conglomerate (and really, which one is?), but to judge by just one dark lager and how it tastes, it’s a step up from the frozen-pizza guys.

Run out and buy it? If you like dark lagers, definitely. The beer’s 3.8% alcohol — this is a desítka, or 10° Plato brew — makes it a very manageable lunch beer. Ratebeer also lists a version with just 3.5% alcohol in Sweden. In fact, both the domestic and the Scandinavian brews are much weaker than Krušovice Černé once was: the beer is descended from a celebratory brew called Grand, originally brewed at 14° and with around 6% alcohol, first made sometime around 1900. (That’s not a lunch beer by any means, at least not for me.)

I think this shows that not all foreign owners are equal, or at least not equally bad. Nor are all local owners universally good for breweries and beer lovers. One Czech brewmaster I spoke with recently noted that his beers improved remarkably once his brewery was bought by foreigners, who then provided enough capital to invest in better ingredients. Now it’s all Žatecký poloraný červeňák and Haná barley, all the time. But in the bad old days when his brewery was still Czech-owned, he said, they used Chinese hops and malt from Slovakia.

Czech brewers have a tradition of making special beers to celebrate special anniversaries. A common way to commemorate the date is to work the founding year into the recipe of the beer itself.

For example, to celebrate the 325th anniversary of Moravia’s Pivovar Vyškov, brewmaster Dušan Táborský created an excellent strong and hoppy pale lager, Jubiler, brewed at an original gravity of 16.80° Plato, to reflect the brewery’s founding year of 1680.

Other Czech beers have taken a similar path.

To mark its founding in 1530, Pivovar Černá Hora released a beer, simply called 1530, brewed at 15.30° Plato. And then there’s U Medvídků’s newish pale lager, 1466, whose original gravity should by now be pretty easy to guess. (Hint: it’s 14.66°).

But to mark this year’s 175th anniversary of its founding back in 1834, Měšťanský pivovar Havlíčkův Brod — better known as Rebel — zigged where everyone else zagged. Instead of brewing its celebratory beer at an original gravity of 18.34° Plato, Rebel took the “175″ from the anniversary and gave it a starting gravity of 17.5° Plato. (Rebel? Maverick!)

And instead of simply calling the brew “1834,” Rebel went the scenic route, by which I meaning the long, loquacious road that leads over the Prolix Pass of the Circumlocutory Mountains, through the Valley of Verbosity and on deep into the Voluble Hills. As far as I can tell, this beer is called “Rebel 175let Extra Strong 17.5 Limitovaná série silného piva,” meaning “Rebel 175-Year Extra Strong 17.5 Limited Series Strong Beer.” At least that’s what’s on the front label, along with the dates “1834–2009.”

Because we’re friends, I’m just going to call it Rebel 17.5°.

The back of the bottle reads, in Czech, “By the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Havlíčkův Brod brewery we have prepared a true specialty. This is the strongest beer that was ever brewed in Havlíčkův Brod. 1834–2009 Limited series of strong beer. Special pale beer.”

So what’s it like?

Interesting, but not something I’d run out and buy a case of. A bit of diacetyl is generally not considered a serious fault in Czech pale lagers, but in this case, it goes too far for my taste, creating overwhelming butterscotch and vanilla notes. Once you get past the diacetyl, it’s got a pleasant, long-lasting bitter finish. In terms of aroma, the front of the house is dedicated to malt, with strong corn and grainy notes. (And unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot of Hop Action™ here.) One good note: the alcohol is pretty subtle for a walloping 8%.

To be honest, I think this beer might have been more successful if it had actually been brewed at 18.34°. A wort strength above 18° Plato would lend itself to the style of strong dark lager called “porter” in Czech, meaning a Baltic Porter like Pardubický Porter and Primátor’s Double 24°. Instead, this is a strong pale lager much like Jubiler, but without Jubiler’s hoppiness to balance the sweetness of the malt. And the diacetyl is just too much for me. In this case, the brewery might have taken its name a bit too seriously.

Perhaps something less rebellious and slightly more charismatic for the 200th?

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.

Since earlier this year, the upstairs microbrewery at U Medvídků has served its own pale lager. Called 1466, it’s certainly not meant to compete with the Budvar 10° and 12° beers the pub serves in its beer hall: this is a pale lager brewed at 14.66° Plato, putting it up in the “speciál” territory, roughly analogous to a Bock.

The flavors here, however, are not Bocklike. There’s malt but no plumminess. There’s an unexpectedly aromatic hop presence from the use of whole Saaz hop cones. And there’s not even a touch of alcoholic heat. For a beer brewed at 14.66°, the strength should probably end up just under 6%, but you’d be hard pressed to notice it in this case. What you get instead is a nicely full malt body with a very hoppy backbite, like a strong Pilsner, only more so.

(In appearance, it looks much like a Hefeweizen. It’s that cloudy and pale in color.)

At 48 Kč for a half-liter, the 1466 pale lager is among the most expensive brewpub beers in Prague, but at least the portion is the full amount for grown-ups.

That’s not the only news at U Medvídků. According to pub owner Jan Göttel, U Medvídků is thinking of expanding its production in the fall, which might allow them to sell more brews out of the house. That might mean you’ll see bottles of X-33 in more specialty beer shops. It could even mean that you’ll see Oldgott and 1466 on draft elsewhere in Prague.

And who knows? They might even end up brewing a dark lager someday.

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.

Beyond the expanded beer list, there are other changes as well. There’s a nice garden upstairs, which I didn’t see last year. And the bargain 85 Kč ($4.50) lunch special they had last year appears to be long gone. I went by on Tuesday and found a two-course lunch special for 150 Kč, but at least that included a small beer. Large beers are still priced a bit on the high side, 45 Kč, but in the case of the new arrival, it’s worth it.

The new brew is a 12° dark, but this is much more of a German Schwarzbier than it is a typical Czech tmavé pivo: it finishes slightly dry, not terribly sweet, and there’s less coffee in the mouth than your average tmavé pivo. Czech brewing law doesn’t differentiate between “tmavé pivo” (or “dark beer”) and “černé pivo” (or “black beer”), but this is one case where I would suggest that “černé” should be used. Beyond just being black in color and dry in the finish, it’s excellent.

The pale lager seemed improved as well, though without the same impact, perhaps because of the surfeit of great pale lagers in the country. To date, the Czech Republic only has a couple of these Schwarzbier-like black brews: the inspirational Bohemian Black Lager from Pivovar Herold and the great Flekovské pivo from U Fleků come to mind.

Today, many — if not most — European beers are made with barley. Earlier European beers, however, were made with any number of other grains. But then came the reformers: Bavaria’s Reinheitsgebot proscribed the use of anything other than barley in 1516; in Bohemia, the great brewing scientist František Ondřej Poupě, author of “The Art of Beer Brewing” (1794), helped kill off other grains at the end of the eighteenth century, famously declaring that oats were for horses, wheat was for cakes, and only barley was fit for beer.

So before barley was the only ingredient to use, what did beers taste like? They might have been a bit like the Historisches Emmer Bier from Germany’s Riedenburger brewery, made with malted emmer, einkorn and spelt (all early domesticated forms of wheat), as well as barley and modern wheat.

Beyond the grain bill, it’s an unusual brew with unusual flavors. From my swing-top bottle it poured a cloudy amber with a thick head and a slightly spicy nose. In the mouth, it was malty and finshed a bit sour, roughly akin to a dark wheat but also rich and full like a Vienna lager. There was also a strange flavor I couldn’t quite place. What I come up with was umami, the flavorsome, food-like notes that reminded me most of doughy notes mixed with vegetables: a good pizza, a rich bowl of pasta, a great sandwich on fresh bread.

It’s also worth noting that this beer is a Naturtrüb, and it is correspondingly cloudy with some amazing amounts of sediment. I’m not sure if you can tell from this shot down the bottle neck, but the last centimeter of liquid was fairly viscous gunk.

My guess is that the hearty, food-like notes came from the primitive wheats in use. In any case, I’d definitely try it again: like a Vienna lager, I think it would be an ideal pairing with pizza or pasta.

Hungary is wine country, but it has a long tradition of brewing as well, with the legendary name of Dreher — as in Anton — the brand of one of the country’s best-known pale lagers. Unfortunately, finding good craft beer from the country’s small producers is tricky. Just about everywhere you go, you’ll come across Dreher (part of SABMiller) and Soproni (a Heineken brand). But great local beer? Microbrews? Not so easy to spot.

We spent most of the last two weeks in Hungary, first at Lake Balaton, then in Budapest, where we I finally found a couple of interesting beers. Or at least, what looked like interesting beers. My Hungarian is limited to the five words most commonly found on restaurant menus, but when I saw the sign above, I was pretty sure that “házi” might be something like “domácí” in Czech, the equivalent of “house-made,” and I knew that “sör” meant beer. So I picked up a bottle of each brew: a világos, or pale, called Gutberger, and a barna, or dark, called Braunger.

Both come from the Szögedi Sörfőzde, which says it was established in 1993. Both were bombshell-shaped plastic (PET) containers of 1 liter, or just about two pints. Each cost the equivalent of $1.50.

Unfortunately, the packaging and price turned out to be the high points of the bottles from Szögedi Sörfőzde. The dark Braunger had a decent appearance of clear amber with thick-set beige foam. There were some light cola flavors in the mouth, as well as a touch of gingery spice, and I detected some not-so-fun cardboard flavors in the finish. That was still better than the Gutberger, which poured a very light gold with an industrially white foamy head that immediately died. The Gutberger’s nose was only slightly grainy, and there was no discernible hop aroma or flavor. Or any other aromas or flavors of any kind.

It brought to mind Jean-Pierre Van Roy’s proclamation about industrial beers: like him, I would rather drink a good industrial beer than a bad artisanal beer, and in this case I’d rather have a glass of SABMiller’s Dreher (not a bad pale lager) or a dark Soproni Démon, which I quite liked, regardless of how much I want to support small producers.

And of course Hungary does have better craft beer producers: there’s the Gyertyános brewery at Miskolc, which has a great reputation among Hungarian foodies, and which was part of the V3 Rauchbier miracle produced in conjunction with Pivovar Kocour Varnsdorf and Slovakia’s Kaltenecker. There is also Budapest’s “Only Good Beers!” store, Csak a jó sör!, which sells La Chouffe and other international specialities which are not found even in beer-loving countries like the Czech Republic.

When I return to Hungary, I’ll keep looking for good local brews. But I’ll probably settle for my favorite discovery from this last trip: a few bottles of cserszegi fűszeres, a lovely indigenous white wine, from an excellent local producer like Jásdi. “Only Good Beers” is a great name for a beer store. But sometimes good wines will have to do.

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.

The Scottish and Czech beers are more different than you might imagine: Herold has 5.3% alcohol, while Zeitgeist went from 5.1% in prototype to 4.9% in production. The Herold is half a shade darker with a sandy head; the production version of Zeitgeist has cream-colored foam.

As I wrote back then, the prototype Zeitgeist had a touch of smokiness in the nose and mouth. That’s still there, though BrewDog has assured me there’s not a grain of smoked malt anywhere near the thing. The astringence — the drying, slightly acidic notes in the finish — that I noted in the prototype are still very much present in the production version. There’s a touch of cooked fruit, and some nice bitter notes.

By contrast, my bottle of Herold Bohemian Black Lager has almost no smokiness and much more chocolate and dry cocoa flavors. It’s dry in the finish, but not quite as dry as Zeitgeist. (It’s also surpremely drinkable: dark beers are not generally thought of as summertime drinks, but Herold’s Bohemian Black Lager is light enough in the body to be quite refreshing on a very warm evening. As is Zeitgeist.)

So which do I prefer? Considering I live in Prague and I really believe in drinking locally, that’s a no-brainer: I’ll take the Czech bottle, thank you. But in terms of taste?

If you can’t get Herold, you surely won’t regret having a Zeitgeist: it’s an excellent dark lager with loads of flavor and surprising complexity. If you can get them both, you have a choice: a bit more cocoa and chocolate with the Herold, or a bit more dryness and bitter fruit flavors with the Zeitgeist.

Marx would probably say that Zeitgeist (the beer) is influenced by the material — in this case, the malt, hops, yeast and water — with which it is produced, and that is why it tastes the way it does. But in this case I think I’m going to go with Hegel. Zeitgeist, at least the beer, is greater than the sum of its parts.

Right now, Richter Brewery in Prague has something similar on tap: a polotmavý (half-dark, meaning amber) Weißbier. It’s brewed at a conventional 13° with about 5% alcohol, versus 18.5° and a massive 8.2% for the brawny German.

The strength might be the biggest difference between the two, as some of the flavors and aromas are quite similar. The nose of the Polotmavý Weißbier has cooked plums and chocolate and cocoa notes with just a breath of citrus acidity. In the mouth, it starts out with fairly sweet and complex fruitcake flavors before a dry finish.

Half-liters of Richter’s Polotmavý Weißbier are 35 Kč. Get one while you can.