Recently, new owners have taken over at storied Pivovar Herold, the small regional brewery located in Březnice, Central Bohemia. So far, not much seems to have changed: Herold’s Bohemian Black Lager is just as rich and full of coffee and chocolate notes as ever. But you might be wondering if new management harkens good news for the brand, especially in terms of its meagre distribution and lack of widespread availability.

Your chance to find out is this Tuesday, 17 March, 2009, when Pivovarský klub will host a Herold beer tasting.

At least some changes have already shown up: the Herold brewery website has finally been updated, noting a current lineup of just four brews: the 10° pale lager (světlé výčepní pivo), a 12° pale lager (světlý březnický ležák), the magnificent Bohemian Black Lager (called “tmavé speciální pivo” in Czech and brewed at 13°) and the brewery’s 14° amber special (polotmavé speciální pivo). Not mentioned is the brewery’s gimmicky Bastard beer, nor is there any reference to Herold’s long-absent and once-revolutionary wheat brews. Expect to get the final word on these at the tasting.

Especially nice on the new website: the brewery proudly lists its long lagering times, often a good sign for the quality of the brew. Both the dark and the amber get 70 days; the 12° pale lager gets 60. (By contrast, Pilsner Urquell gets about 35 days of lagering. Most of the industrial beers in this country are produced much faster than that, though Budweiser Budvar says it still matures its beer for up to 90 days.)

Considering the tightness of Herold’s line — just four models brewed at 10°, 12°, 13° and 14° — the brewery manages to put out some highly diverse flavors, many of which have turned heads recently: the amber special took first place earlier this year at the Česká pivní pečeť in Tábor, and BrewDog’s James Watt told me that Herold’s Bohemian Black Lager was the inspiration for their excellent new Zeitgeist beer.

The brewery is especially interesting when you consider its noble history, much of which is covered in Ludvík Fürst’s fascinating monograph, “Jak se u nás vařilo pivo” (or “How we used to brew beer”). In 1586, “how” for the brewery in Březnice meant both “white beer,” made with wheat, and “old beer,” meaning barley; historical archives have clear records of the brewery’s founding in 1506 and its production in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. On Tuesday, it would be nice to hear some good news about Herold’s future.

Herold Beer Tasting
Where: Pivovarský klub, Křižíkova 17°, Praha 8 – Karlín
When: Tuesday, 17 March, at 6 p.m.
How much: 140 Kč (students, journalists and cardholders 70 Kč)
Tel: 222 315 777

The tradition of Czech brewing may go back more than a thousand years, but it’s also clearly moving forward. Beer lovers here have been thrilled by recent developments like the appearance of Pivovar Bašta and other new brewpubs, cutting-edge new regional breweries like Pivovar Kocour Varnsdorf, and the reappearance of older styles such as Klostermann amber lager — all of which have arrived since the publication of Good Beer Guide Prague and the Czech Republic last May.

To that end, I’m doing another seminar, this time one titled “New Brews: Recent Developments in the Czech Brewing Scene,” which will take place Thursday, 3 July, 2008, in the wine cellar of Essensia restaurant (inside the Mandarin Oriental hotel). The combined dinner, talk and beer tasting will last about three hours.

In addition to a slew of new lagers and ales, many of which have never been seen in Prague, Essensia will serve its delicious Czech and Asian culinary specialties. Think of it as a luxurious meal in a five-star restaurant — only one which is accompanied by some truly great beers and a spirited discussion on the history, news, background and future of Czech brewing.

And then there is the beer list to consider.

Herewith the provisional selection of what we’ll be tasting on July 3:

Roggenbier, Pivovar Kocour Varnsdorf
Klostermann, Pivovar Strakonice
Opat Bitter Extra-Chmelené, Pivovar Broumov
Xantho, Pivovar Žatec
Mary-Jo, Pivovar Regent
Stout, Pivovarský dům
Saison, Pivovar Kocour Varnsdorf

For me, each of these beers tells us something about what makes Czech beer so interesting, whether it is the use of world-class ingredients like Haná barley and Žatec/Saaz hops, a tendency for creativity and innovation, or a desire to recapture some of the region’s long-lost brewing traditions. The first talk we did was an amazing amount of fun; this one promises to be even better.

If you’re interested in attending, these are the details from Essensia and the Mandarin Oriental on the second event of what they’re calling the Czech Beer Academy:

“New Brews: Recent Developments in the Czech Brewing Scene”

On Thursday, 3 July, 2008, the wine cellar beneath Essensia restaurant will host the second seminar of our new Czech Beer Academy at Mandarin Oriental, Prague.

This seminar and guided tasting (in English) will be led by Evan Rail, a Prague-based writer specializing in beer and travel. Our second seminar’s theme is “New Brews: Recent Developments in the Czech Brewing Scene.”

During the course of the evening, participants will have a chance to discuss and taste seven different kinds of new, top-quality Czech beers. The beer will be complemented by an array of Czech and Asian specialties prepared by the Essensia restaurant.

Date/Time: Thursday, 3 July, 2008, 7 p.m.—10 p.m. (Future seminars will be held in October and December 2008; dates are yet to be announced.)

Price: 1,150 CZK per person

Reservations: Kindly contact the Concierge at the telephone number +420 233 088 605 or the email address moprg-concierge@mohg.com. Reservations are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

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.

My first impression was one of awe: there is almost too much information to be gleaned from beer bottles. I’ve always wondered when exactly the Czech Republic switched from the little fat vessels used before the Velvet Revolution to the standard European half-liters today. With more than 2,000 bottles in the collection, you can track the changes year by year. (It looks like a gradual process over several years starting around 1995. Polička, struggling at the time, was the last Czech brewery to make the switch, shipping its beer in fatties until 1999.)

What about beers that don’t exist today? Something like Gambinus cerné (“black”), a dark lager available in both 10° and 12° versions, or Gambrinus bílé (“white”), the long-discontinued wheat beer from Pilsen?

Of course, the Czech lands were once known for their wheat beers, before the spread of industrial Pilsner-style brewing in the late nineteenth century, and along with amber lagers, strong darks and quality non-alcoholics, pšeničné pivo has become one of the country’s current beer trends today: Primátor’s very good Weizenbier is doing quite well, and several microbrewers and brewpubs are now offering wheats in a welcome return to a traditional style. Before their resurgence, one of the last Czech wheats to die was Prior, the Hefeweizen from Domažlice, a brewery that was shuttered by Plzeňský Prazdroj in 1996. Naturally, you’ll find a bottle here.

The collection includes more than 4,000 beermats, many of which come from long-closed pubs and breweries, as well as bottles going back a century and more (the oldest of which are shown up top). There’s even an unopened Pilsner Urquell from November of 1984, probably not okay to drink today, and some unusual promotional materials, including a massive two-liter bottle of Budvar, proportioned just like a normal Budvar half-liter. (Once you see it, you’ll think you’ve been miniaturized.)

There’s a lot more to learn about our brewing history, and often the only remaining resources are labels, beermats and advertisements — sometimes even fake ones. Going through the list of counterfeit Czech beer labels at Pivety.com, I was surprised to learn that several local producers once made a beer called “porter,” not just Pardubice (Slovakia’s Martinský Pivovar as well as Bohemia’s Broumov, often called Opat, both made porters). You can also see that the term “granát” was used by some brewers for a tmavý (dark), not an amber or half-dark.

So, there it is: what could have been trash, if not recycling, is now a treasure-house of information about Czech brewing history. As it turns out, the Salesian Beer Museum was founded by accident: Brother Nevola says he took a long bike trip and came back with five unusual bottles as souvenirs. The kids visiting the youth center saw those five bottles and started bringing in more bottles from home. Others contributed coasters, glasses and beermats. Someone found a placard for the old Vinohrady brewery in an attic — not a worthless item for collectors of breweriana by any means — and brought that in. Within just a few years, the collection had expanded to cover several hallways on several floors of the complex. It has been evaluated by authorities as having the only copies of several historical beer bottles in existence.

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.

In fact, some nonalcoholic beers are pretty darn amazing. Budvar’s very hoppy nonalcoholic beer turned the heads of more than a few drivers (and passengers) when it first appeared. Even better versions have come from fave small producers like Bernard, who combined the interest in driver-friendly brews with its own unpasteurized aesthetic, introducing an unpasteurized, nonalcoholic golden lager called Bernard Free that rated at the top of the list for at least one taster, as well as SPP.

Then, in a nod to the continuing local love affair with amber beers, Bernard came out with Bernard Free Jantarové — an unpasteurized amber brew roughly akin to a Vienna lager, but without alcohol. There’s not much nose, but it has a nice taste of malt and mixed whole grains in the mouth. The finish is mild and lasting, but not overly sweet. Most beer lovers wouldn’t be desperate to order this over a regular Bernard amber beer, a lovely brew itself, but if you can’t or don’t feel like consuming alcohol, you could do far worse for a decent sip to go with lunch.

Oh, and that slogan on the label? It’s “Bernard s čistou hlavou,” literally “Bernard with a clean head,” and it shows brewery owner Stanislav Bernard — something of a rock star in these parts — with his characteristic curly locks shorn clean off. Normally, he is substantially more hirsute. Here’s how he appeared when he and brewer Josef Vávra accepted SPP’s award for nonalcoholic beer of the year 2007:

There’s certainly more room for innovation in the market: as far as I know, no Czech producer makes anything like Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier Alkoholfrei, a bottle of which I brought back from Starkbierzeit in Munich last weekend. As the name implies, it’s a non-alcoholic Hefeweizen, arriving with a visible yeast deposit at the bottom of the bottle. In general, it is the same as your average Bavarian wheat: it pours a cloudy gold with a thick, well-set white head; the nose is of citrus blossoms and fruit; in the mouth it is just slightly acidic, then slightly malty, finishing with a hint of banana, if not clove.

It’s spot-on for the taste of yeast and wheat, and only afterwards do you notice that one normal aspect of a good beer is missing: the astringent feel of alcohol in the mouth. At the same time, you might notice that something else is unexpectedly present: a perfectly clear — if not clean-shaven — head.

News roundup: my colleague Max Bahnson has a post on a few beers from Žatec, including the new Xantho (above). The label calls it a dark, but to me it seems more like a polotmavý (half-dark), aka jantar (amber), also known as granát (garnet), as well as “something like Vienna lager in the Czech lands.” Max will catch you up on pivo from the town otherwise known as Saaz, though he didn’t get to my current favorite from the brewery, Lučan Premium Tmavé, a chocolatey dark lager that my local corner shop usually stocks for just 8.50 Kč per half-liter, the equivalent of €.34 or about $.50.

Such low prices are on their way out, according to a recent article from Prague Monitor and Hospodářské noviny, who report that smaller Czech breweries are raising their prices (subscription required), following the lead of major brewers last November. Pilsner Urquell remains the most expensive, and if you want to know just how much your publican currently shells out for that half-liter of Urquell, the answer is 18.90 Kč (€.75 / $1.10). Smaller brewers, for all their quality, still charge far less, though last year’s 100% increase in the price of malt, the article says, results in a direct cost hike of about 30% for the breweries. At least some of that will be passed on to consumers in the near term.

Thirst is a powerful force, however, and the article notes that higher prices are unlikely to affect production. In fact, last year Czech brewers hit a record high of 20 million hectoliters (about 12.2 million barrels, if I’ve got the numbers right — feel free to check my math). The article concluded with more good news from the Bernard family brewery: Bernard’s production for January 2008 is up 28%, despite raising prices by 10% last year.

But wait, it gets better.

Several months ago there was a tasting in Prague of beers from Strakonice, a fine old South Bohemian brewery that makes decent Pilsner-style brews. But one of the most striking things at the tasting was how limited the brewery’s line was — three virtually indistinguishable golden lagers brewed at 10°, 11° and 12° — and how truly wonky their marketing is (the brewery uses the names Strakonice, Dudák, Nektar and Měšťanský pivovar, and the 10° golden lager, called “Měšťanská desítka,” or “Burghers’ Ten,” doesn’t have a visible “Strakonice” anywhere on the label.) Some of us pointed out that it is impossible to build brand loyalty when consumers can’t tell what brand it is they are drinking, and asked how freaking difficult would it be for Strakonice to brew a 13° amber lager, noting that this is hardly an obscure style at this point — in fact, it’s a growing trend here, as I’ve said before.

Well, last week the Czech newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes reported that Strakonice will launch its new 13° polotmavé pivo, Klostermann, later this month. Unfortunately, there’s still no word on the confusing labels and Strakonice’s multitude of heteronyms, which certainly isn’t helping the region’s last city-owned brewery — the article noted that Strakonice’s sales dipped by 2,000 last year to just 74,000 hectoliters. But given the unexpected appearance of Klostermann, dare we go on to suggest a wheat beer? Or even a dark lager brewed at 18° or above? Dare we recommend they offer a quality non-alcoholic beer, or even an amber non-alcoholic beer as Bernard has done? City-owned breweries can certainly innovate. The question is only if they can do it in time.

I have a story about new restaurants in Vienna in this weekend’s NYT. This is another Choice Tables feature, not a beer story, but I had to include the very good Rotes Zwickl from Ottakringer, which I liked a lot as the house beer at the excellent restaurant Österreicher im MAK (whose taps are pictured above). In the story, I wrote that this is one of the few beers in Vienna to come close to the nearly extinct Vienna lager style. Before any BJCP-style-guidelines-citing readers comment that a red Zwickl isn’t anything like Vienna lager, I’ll quickly link to Conrad Seidl’s piece on a real Vienna lager from Brauerei Villach, in which he writes (my translation):

“…but in Vienna, the local beer style was no more. Of Austrian beers, Hadmar (Bierwerkstatt Weitra) and the Rotes Zwickl from Ottakringer came the closest.”

What is interesting about the Vienna lager style is that, after it died out at home, related beers continued to exist in a couple of places: Mexico, for one, and in the Czech lands. (As Ron Pattinson wrote, “Vienna lagers aren’t dead: they’ve just moved over the border.”) In fact, this is one of the four current Czech beer trends I mentioned in The Truth about Budvar and in a post on Prague’s newest brewpub, Bašta.

Nope, those beers aren’t dead. They’re absolutely thriving here.

However, just as Hans and Franz go by Honza and František hereabouts, Vienna lager seems to change its name once it crosses the border: instead of Wiener Lager or even vídeňský ležák, our versions are called jantar (amber), polotmavý (half-dark) or granát (garnet). Often brewed from 11°–14° or higher, they are clear, light amber to deep amber in color, characterized by a fairly rich body with toasty malt, caramel, toffee and even syrupy notes followed by a lasting sweet finish without much hoppiness, unlike the bitter bite of a real Czech Pilsner-style beer.

Ottakringer’s Rotes Zwickl seemed a bit lighter in color than its Czech cousins, and the unfiltered Zwickl cloudiness made it stand out. But other than a slight yeastiness, the overall flavor was fairly similar, perhaps finishing with a bit less malt, though still pretty good.

Beyond Rotes Zwickl, I enjoyed Vienna immensely: the people were surprisingly friendly for a big city, the vast art collections can practically cause hallucinations (the good kind), and Viennese cuisine is like the best meal cooked by the Czech grandmother you never had. (Much like Franz and František, the Beuscherl from the story can be found as Pajšl in the Czech lands.) I was highly impressed by the restaurants in the article, all of which seemed to be run by people who care deeply about food and where it comes from.

Of course, Vienna is historically more into wine and coffee than beer, and the fine-dining angle on this story meant I wouldn’t get to spend too much time in the pub. Nonetheless, I did find some very good half-liters at Universitätsbräu, also known as Unibräu, a brewpub on the university campus with a refreshing (and pale, in the typical Austrian style) Märzen. And one rainy night when we were off restaurant duty, Nina and I visited Sieben-Stern-Bräu, which makes a properly smoky Bamberger Rauchbier (as well as a pretty decent plate of chili con carne, at least by Central European standards — you’re supposed to cook the beans, people). Seven Stars also serve an amber Märzen that they say is akin to a Vienna lager, though what I found most interesting was the dark beer they called Prager Dunkles, in homage to what was once Prague’s favorite pivo.

Nowadays, of course, many pubs and restaurants in Prague serve only Pilsner-style brews, with rich dark lagers often quite hard to find outside of brewpubs. In fact, Prague-style dark beer makes a weird parallel to Vienna lager: a beer that was once closely associated with the Czech capital has now largely disappeared.

But that’s a different story. As for Vienna lager and Czech amber and half-dark beers, I’ll have more to write soon. In the meantime, don’t miss Österreicher im MAK on your next trip to Vienna — and don’t skip the Beuscherl.

Just a quick post on the wonderful city-owned Pivovar Primátor, which I mentioned a couple of days ago in my contrarian take on Budvar as a good example of an innovative brewery outside the private sector. Last night Primátor held a tasting at Prague’s Pivovarský klub, showing off its full line of beers (pictured above with deservedly happy brewmaster Pavel Kořínek). Although all the beers were worth trying before, last night at least a couple gave the impression of having improved considerably.

To start, Primátor’s excellent 13° polotmavý (5.5% ABV) seemed much sweeter and more richly caramel-flavored than I remembered, well-worth its award for SPP’s semi-dark beer of the year for 2006.

And Primátor’s unusual strong lager, the 24° Double (10.5% ABV), seemed to have a fuller, stickier mouthfeel than before, followed by more lush notes of maple syrup, toasty malt and with a bright, peppermint-like hoppy spike in the finish. This is a deep amber lager, brewed from a mix of Bavarian and caramel malt and a small wheat adjunct, and it’s recommended as much as an ingredient in the kitchen as a beverage on the table. (A slice of bůček, or pork belly, glazed with 24° Double could be an absolute dream.) I’m not sure I prefer it to Březňák’s Doppel-Doppel-Bock, but it’s close.

As he introduced the beers, Mr. Kořínek explained a bit more about the offerings from the brewery.

There is also a small wheat adjunct in Primátor’s unusual 12° English Pale Ale (5% ABV), he said, noting that the brewery gets its ale yeast from Scotland and the Challenger and Goldings hops from England. Importing hops is rather unusual for Czech brewers, surrounded as they are by the best of Saaz, aka Žatec, but Saaz wouldn’t work in this style. It’s worth noting that the English Pale Ale is dry-hopped, as is the new extra-chmelené pivo (extra-hopped beer) from not-so-far-away Pivovar Broumov, also known as Opat.

All in all, Primátor’s beer-and-pony show was impressive. In terms of getting their marketing together, the brewery has a new line of easier-to-read labels. Alan McLeod wrote a great piece about beer labels at A Good Beer Blog yesterday, and it’s something that far too few brewers here think about. (At a tasting of beers from Pivovar Strakonice two months ago, I pointed out that one of their beers didn’t even say “Strakonice” on the front. How on earth are you supposed to inspire brand loyalty if your customers don’t know what brand it is they’re buying? Could you make this any harder for us?)

Since it is 100% owned by the city of Náchod, Primátor annually contributes some 200,000–300,000 Kč (7,700–11,500 euros) to the municipal coffers — not bad at all in terms of creating goodwill. The appreciation was clearly evident at the tasting: most beer presentations do not include spontaneous outbursts of applause, but this one did.

As for further innovation, I asked if Primátor would consider making a lehké pivo (literally “light beer,” brewed at 7° or less and finishing with less than 130 kJ per 100 milliliters, an older style of table beer even more subdued than Lew Bryson’s session beer project). The brewery’s management wouldn’t say yes or no, but they did note that Primátor should announce a new product line sometime this spring. For Czech beer fans, this could be an early Christmas.

Okay, I goofed. As part of the first post of Beer Culture, I promised a review of the Christmas beer at Prague’s Klášterní pivovar Strahov (Strahov Monastery Brewery). By the time I got up there last week, it was gone, completely sold out and no longer available. Promiňte! I’ve tried this beer several times over the past few years and it’s always seemed to last longer than this — and it’s always been worth the trip. But, due to the typical holiday rush, the 2007 version escaped me. Give me another eleven months and I’ll make it up to you.

As an alternative, here’s a tasting report on two other special beers from Strahov, both of which I tried recently from bottles.

Sv. Norbert Podzimní Tmavé / Autumn Dark 16° (pictured above). From the label: “An all-malt, bottom-fermented beer brewed from the fresh harvest of hops.” This is a clear, very dark amber brewed at 16°, or 1.065, and ending up with 6.3% ABV. It’s topped with a loose, sandy-colored head that doesn’t stick around for too long. The fruity, aromatic nose hints of raspberries and hashish. It has a lush mouthfeel and a full, bittersweet malt rush in the mouth, followed by a lasting, toasty finish. This beer has less coffee flavors than most Czech darks, and additional sips uncover rich licorice and cola notes. Outstanding.

Sv. Norbert Pšeničné / Weizen 13°. This wheat beer pours a cloudy deep gold with a thick, creamy white head. From the bottle, it appears less fizzy than the version on tap. The bouquet has a mysteriously spicy, almost animal scent. In the mouth it has a rich, honey-scented malt-wheat body and minimal citrus flavors which finish with a peppery clove note. Arguably the best wheat beer in the country. I believe it has benefited substantially from bottle-conditioning, and I would prefer this version to the one on draft.

It’s interesting to note that there is only one rating for the Autumn Dark at Ratebeer, and only four ratings exist for the wheat beer, though the brewery’s standard amber special is ranked as the second-best beer in the country (coming only after the unfiltered Pilsner Urquell served at the end of the brewery tour). When I went to Strahov, there was another less-common beer on tap, the Sv. Norbert Světlé 12°, a classic golden lager with a bitter hop finish that I enjoyed immensely.

There are only two caveats to visiting Strahov, both of which stem from the same root problem, that the clientele is largely composed of foreign tourists, often in large, noisy groups. First of all, this means that service can be indifferent at best and even quite unfriendly, in the case of at least one waiter in the brewpub restaurant. Second, as I mentioned in the guidebook, the price-portion ratio is also geared towards tourists, with a smallish .4-liter glass of draft beer costing 59 Kč (at current rates, $3.30 / £1.70 / €2.27), and a .5-liter bottle of Weizen, the only bottle they had available on my most recent visit, priced at 100 Kč.

By local standards, that’s very expensive beer. As I wrote earlier, a .5-liter glass (or půllitr, the standard serving) of great polotmavé pivo costs 25 Kč at Prague’s newest brewpub, Pivovar Bašta. A half-liter of good Budvar, Bernard or Svijany can also be as cheap as 25 Kč in the center of Prague, and much less in the outskirts. But the Strahov beers certainly offer something more than your average pint of lager, and only you can decide if the pivo is worth the price.

For this year’s SPP awards, most of us in Prague first met for breakfast at Hotel Beránek, near metro station I.P. Pavlova. Before getting on the bus, we were able to try Hotel Beránek’s house beer, brewed and bottled for the hotel by Chodovar.

What a great idea, I thought. Why don’t more places have their own beers? Of course a bottle of beer is fairly hard to fold, but it would still make an interesting holiday card. Or a thank-you gift. (Personally, I’d love to use one as my business card, but that would present logistical problems involving pockets, weight and my own thirst that I shouldn’t go into here.) Homebrewing’s easy enough. How hard could it be to have a beer made, maybe just for a special occasion?

And then before Christmas, I was told that my local, Pivovarský klub, had a new beer coming out for its regular customers and friends of the house. Called Florenc 14:14, it’s a polotmavý (half-dark) lager brewed from three kinds of malt at 14° Balling, lagered for more than a month and finishing with 5.5% ABV, produced in a limited run of less than 70 bottles of 330 centiliters.

In the glass (yes, I’m still using the Sahm .3-liter glass I got at the Christmas Beer Markets), the beer first poured as a clear medium amber with very little carbonation (just how we like ‘em — great lagers are not fizzy!) The nose was nicely spicy and very malty. In the mouth there was a sugary malt rush which finished with ginger and other spice notes.

A second pour, this time including the sediment from the bottom of the bottle, produced a slightly cloudy amber with what seemed to be a touch of smoke in the finish. Both versions, with sediment and without, were excellent, with a great malt body that made me wish the production wasn’t so limited.

The bottle comes with a booklet describing the brewing process and reminding readers that not only can they taste more than 250 kinds of beer in bottles (and usually six on draft) at Pivovarský klub, they can also brew their own beer using the brewing facilities there.

In fact, when I was writing my guide to Czech beers, I included Pivovarský klub in the chapter for Prague breweries as well as the one for Prague pubs, listing the Křižíková 17° (5.5% ABV) strong golden lager it used to serve. But then that sugary 17° disappeared and Pivovarský klub became just a regular pub, albeit one which serves five rotating brews from regional producers, as well as a version of Pivovarský dům’s excellent Štěpán (brewed under contract at Pivovar Kácov). It’s nice to see Pivovarský klub return to brewing again, if only for a one-off holiday beer.

But that’s the thing: Florenc 14:14 was apparently such a hit that Pivovarský klub now plans to produce it four times a year, according to my fellow Czech beer researcher Max Bahnson, who is now reproducing his excellent Spanish-language Czech beer blog in English. (Czech, Spanish, English: I swear, we’re like the frickin’ United Nations over here. Or at least Max is.) So if you didn’t get to taste Florenc 14:14 this holiday season, you might get your chance in the spring.

One final note: polotmavý really seems to be the color of the era hereabouts. Not only are at least two beers at Prague’s new brewpub Pivovar Bašta both amber in color, but Bernard now has a polotmavý version of its well-received non-alcoholic beer. I know Ron Pattinson has something to say about amber lagers, as well as the subject of having special brews produced just for you, but I’ll leave that to him.