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?

Otherwise known as Březňák, Pivovar Velké Březno has one of the strangest and most tragic histories in the Czech lands. Located in the Czech-German border region that was once called the Sudetenland, for most of its early existence the brewery had a pronouncedly German clientele. Now, returning to its roots, the brewery has launched an excellent new beer for the German market: the so-called Doppel-Doppel Bock.

Of course, it’s never quite that simple when the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Holocaust are concerned, and Březňák is so weirdly mixed up in the situation that as you hear the story it’s hard to remember which level of irony you’ve reached. For example, this brewery proudly supplied beer to Rommel’s Afrikakorps throughout the war. But the man who posed for the picture on the label, Victor Cibich, aka Zippich — the very image of a once-Nazi brewery — was actually a German-speaking Czech Jew. And yes, it gets even weirder from there.

But first: the beer. I found this one at Pivní galerie, where owner Petr Vaněk said he thought it was one of the last such bottles in the country. (Though afterwards, I saw a few more at the new “Beer Gallery” bottle shop on Nerudova, which I’ll write about another time.) It is a German 500-milliliter bottle, and virtually everything on the label is in German, claiming that this is perhaps the first Doppel-Doppel Bock in the world, and noting that it was brewed at 21° and that it contains 10% alcohol by volume. Unlike most beers of this strength in the Czech Republic, it does not list added sugar as an ingredient: just water, malt, hops, hop extract and yeast.

Doppel-Doppel Bock (10% ABV) Clear amber with a thick, sandy head that makes a good effort to stick around, despite the high-alcohol odds. Very light carbonation. A nose of straw and nutty sweetness hinting at candied walnuts. In the mouth it is vinous, sweet and full without being cloying, lacking the saccharine aftertaste of most added-sugar strong beers. Instead, there is a lasting natural syrup with maple and honey notes that finishes with a pleasant hop tang. Additional sips bring out notes of almonds and baked apples. Remarkably well-incorporated alcohol for 10%. This is definitely a sipper, a winter warmer, and probably the best beer brewed at this strength in the country.

Tasting it, I was definitely impressed, and at several moments it struck me less like a beer than like something I would pour on pancakes — it is that syrupy. It is apparently not very well-known, as it was not listed on Březňák’s beers at Ratebeer.com. It seems a pity that this beer is not more widely available, but perhaps things will change. I’ve given a bottle to Max Bahnson, who’s planning to write about it soon.

Oh, and the rest of the story: so Pivovar Velké Březno supplied beer to the Afrikakorps, despite having adopted a Jewish man’s face for its logo as early as 1906. Victor Cibich himself died in 1916; his wife, Auguste, passed away in 1938. They left behind two grown-up sons, Bruno and Paul, who, as Jews, were sent to concentration camps during the war. Against all odds, the two Cibich boys survived and returned to Velké Březno after the war. But after a scant few months at home, they were forced to leave in the anti-German purges of 1946. That is to say: they were first expelled by the Germans for being Jews, and then they were expelled by the Czechs for being Germans. Bruno and Paul Cibich settled in Nuremberg, Germany, where they died within a few days of each other, in 1967.