I’ve just about recovered from the eight-day, 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) drive through Piedmont and Lombardy, though the impact of seeing northern Italy’s wonderful beer culture firsthand is going to be harder to get over. A case in point: I can’t quite forget the outstanding beer selection at the Eataly supermarket in Turin, pictured above.

Eataly is surely a special case: most supermarkets in Italy don’t carry legends like Thomas Hardy’s Ale, as well as vast selections of local craft brews like Baladin, Grado Plato, Troll and Montegioco. Nonetheless, the fact that a high-end food store like Eataly has a entire craft beer department — as well as an on-site beer restaurant — testifies to how successfully Italian craft brewers have pushed for their products to be seen as an integral part of fine food and drink.

In part this is due to the an obvious competition with wine, I think, which is probably the reason that Italian craft beers are often sold in .75-liter bottles, rather than half-liter standard in Central Europe.

Additionally, the bottles themselves are almost ridiculously well-designed, with great logos and excellent packaging. If you hand someone a bottle of Italian craft beer as a gift, it really looks like something special.

(Compare that to the tasteless, soft-porn labels from Slovakia’s Steiger. Or the goofy, hard-to-recognize packaging from the Czech Republic’s Strakonice.)

Unfortunately, the craft beer prices in Italy are often at the level of wine — and sometimes higher. At Eataly, two vintages of Baladin’s outstanding Xyauyù were priced just under €30 (currently $47, or about 750 Kč). Bottles of Grado Plato’s beautiful Chocarrubica — I really liked it, others did not — were around €9.

That’s hardly appealing to the least common denominator. In a country where overall beer consumption remains very low, Italian craft brewers seem to be striking out for the top of the market, abandoning the low ground almost entirely to the mass-produced Eurobeers. It’s an interesting approach, though I’m not sure it would be as successful in a country with higher beer consumption — and stronger beer traditions — such as the Czech Republic and Germany.

But what are the options? Can Czech craft brewers really hope to compete with growing juggernauts like Heineken, SABMiller and InBev when it comes to basic lagers? More importantly, will Czech consumers ever go for unusual craft beers produced with chocolate and other unusual ingredients? And when will the Czech market get around to recognizing that bottled beers can be as good or even better than draft?

Other than the second question, I really don’t know the answers. But I certainly wouldn’t be disappointed if more Czech brewers took aim at gourmet markets and fine-dining restaurants. After all, what have they got to lose?

It certainly wouldn’t hurt if Czech craft beer makers looked to their Italian cousins for inspiration, as well as for potential clients. For example, Eataly stocks hundreds of bottles of craft beer from all over Italy and all over the world. The only Czech bottles they carry, however, are those from Pilsner Urquell.

What beers do you bring home from a five-day tasting trip in Italy?

Unlike many more-established beer-loving countries, Italian beer culture is based in large part on bottles, rather than draft. (The Czech Republic is the opposite, with even some local experts arguing that tap beer is always, invariably, 100% better than bottled, the concept of bottle conditioning still somewhat unknown here in Lagerland.) This means that before you return, you can easily load your car up with beers and beer-related items. And when you zip down the Passo del Brennero into Austrian Tyrol, you’ll only go that much faster.

Here’s what we brought back with us.

One bottle of Panil Barriquée (8% alcohol by volume), a stunning or possibly disappointing brew aged 90 days in small oak barriques.

One bottle of Birra del Borgo’s KeTo Reporter (5.2%), a porter-style beer brewed with Kentucky Toscano tobacco.

One bottle of 32 Via dei birrai’s Oppale (5.5%), a well-received ale especially recommended by the lovely Flavia Nasini of A Tutta Birra.

One bottle of Birra Amiata’s Bastarda Rossa (7%), made with 20% Monte Amiata chestnuts.

One bottle of Iris Birra’s La castagnola (5%), a beer brewed with both chestnuts and chestnut honey.

Three bottles of Birrificio Grado Plato’s Strada S. Felice (8%), an excellent chestnut-flavored amber ale.

Four bottles of Grado Plato’s incredible Chocarrubica (7%), an outstanding dark resembling a chocolate stout, brewed over two days using infusions of cocoa and Sicilian carob and a 33% oat mash.

One big bottle of Birrificio Baüscia’s Gea barley wine (10.5%) from Milan’s amazing Decanter restaurant.

One paper-wrapped bottle each of Demon Hunter (8.5%), Draco (11%) and Runa (4.8%) from Birrificio Montegioco.

Two extremely green T-shirts from the Italia Beer Festival.

Two jars of lumache alla birra (escargots — as in snails — cooked in beer) from Elicicola Osaschese.

And that’s about it. Missing are the very hoppy beers from Birrificio Italiano, which we loved, though we’re hoping to get back there soon. And for those of you who can’t believe we returned from a beer tour of northern Italy without anything from Baladin, two caveats: we did manage to taste every beer at the Baladin pub, as well as many rare birds and oddities offered with the multi-course dinner with beer pairing at Casa Baladin. (Plus we brought home one jar of cherry preserves made by Teo Musso’s mother, produced from the leftover cherries from the brewery’s Mama Kriek.)

Most of these beers we picked up along the way or discovered at A Tutta Birra, a must-see for beer lovers in Milan. More on these and Italian beer culture in general once we unpack.

Since the EU entry of Poland and the Czech Republic in 2004, many Czech brewers have been expanding their exports to the north, and just about every year a sizeable contingent from the Polish Bractwo Piwne comes south to check out the winners at the Czechs’ SPP beer awards. However, both cases are about Poles enjoying Czech beers, and the interest does not appear to cross the border in both directions: the Czech Republic does not import many beers of any kind, and certainly very few come from the land of Lech.

However, a few Polish brews have showed up recently at Pivovarský klub, so I picked up bottles of Perła and Ciechan Miedowe Niefiltrowane for a tasting.

Perła Chmielowa Pils (500-milliliter bottle / 6% ABV)
Pours a bright clear gold and quite fizzy with a loose white head that disappears within moments. The nose has only a slight touch of malt. In the mouth, a thin body is followed by a thin finish and just a hint of hop bitterness by Czech standards, in contrast to the “chmielowa” on the label. Despite being brewed at 12.2°, it ends up with a strong 6% ABV (versus 4.4% ABV for Pilsner Urquell). The alcohol is well-incorporated, but the deep fermentation reduces its heft: this is a fairly watery “pils” rather than the rich malt body of Pilsner Urquell or the similarly busty brews from Rychtář, Bernard, Opat or Svijany.

Ciechan Miedowe Niefiltrowane (500-milliliter bottle / 6.2% ABV)
This unfiltered honey beer pours a cloudy gold with a loose chalk head that dies quickly. The nose smells strongly of honey, most likely from the addition of “natural aroma” listed on the label. In the mouth, an initial sour bite fades to a lush saccharine rush and a medicinal flavor akin to that of honey-flavored candy. Compared to the Czech honey beers from Sentice’s Pivovar Kvasar and Rambousek in Hradec Králové, this is far sweeter and much more chemical in taste. The label says that this is Piwo Roku (beer of the year) 2006 from Browar Roku (brewery of the year) 2006.

It’s interesting to note that the two Polish brews are quite high in alcohol, compared to similar Czech beers, and I should point out that this is just a random sampling of what showed up at the local bottle shop — I’m certain there are even better surprises hiding in Poland. Like Ron Pattinson, I’m hoping for the return of Grodziskie, described in Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion as “an extremely pale golden beer, with a faint haze of sediment, a dense white head, and a surprisingly light body,” and with “a sourish, sappy, oaky aroma (like a box that had held smoked herring), and a smoky, dry, crisp palate.” Mmm, smoked herring boxes…

Checking out the neighbors can give you an interesting perspective on things at home. Next I’ll be writing about a syrupy new 10% ABV lager from Velké Březno that seems to be brewed exclusively for the German market, as well as an interesting dark beer from Slovakia. And if you’ve got a recommendation for a good beer from Poland or anywhere else, please drop it in the comments box.

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.