This summer I helped a TV crew from the Discovery Channel film brewers and breweries around the Czech Republic. Along the way, we saw some interesting things at U Medvídků, Chodovar and Pilsner Urquell. And of course we got to try some excellent lagers.

Above is a shot of Pilsner Urquell’s senior trade brewmaster Václav Berka getting ready to talk on camera in front of the kettles. I’m not sure if that or anything else from the Czech Republic filming will make it into the final cut of the show, but I do know that the program is supposed to include Charlie Bamforth and Sam Calagione, and it has been given a title and theme that it didn’t have when we were working on it.

More importantly, it’s airing tonight, December 18, at 8 p.m. on the Discovery Channel, with further broadcasts at midnight tonight and January 2 at 6 p.m.

In addition to the Czech brewmasters, I also did an interview, and at this point I have no idea if I said anything coherent. I do remember it was a very warm 37° C and I had to stand in direct sunlight with a reflector directing even more light into my eyes as I was asked questions that were occasionally very far off base. Every once in a while I would ask for a break so I could drink some cold water — yes, water — and wipe the sweat from my brow.

I’ve promised Alan at A Good Beer Blog a post on what it was like to film the show, so I won’t write too much here; if you’re interested, look for it over there once I get a chance to clear my head. And try to check it out if you have access to the Discovery Channel. As we filmed, we had no idea what the exact theme was or even what the series and the program would be called. It’s now been packaged as part of the Discovery Channel’s How Stuff Works, and the description of the show is a bit different than what at least I thought we were working on: “We talk to the experts, brew masters and beer connoisseurs about how they’re innovating new ways to make beer.”

That definitely sounds like Sam Calagione and Dogfish Head. For better or for worse, it doesn’t sound too much like Pilsner Urquell, U Medvídků or Chodovar.

The Czech lands have given the world the original Pilsner, the original Budweiser and many other significant firsts in the world of beer and brewing. Now a Czech company has started a line of health and beauty products made with beer, including beer shampoo, beer shower gel and beer soap.

Called Czech Beer Cosmetics, the beer beauty goods come from Manufaktura, a Prague-based firm known for its traditional wooden toys and tools, as well as bath salts, lotions and soaps. Introduced last fall, Czech Beer Cosmetics have quickly become one of the company’s top sellers.

“It’s probably our most popular product,” said a shop assistant at one Prague outlet. “Both with foreigners and with Czechs.”

Beer is very good for hair and skin, she added, because it contains vitamin B2, which is known to play an important role in the growth and repair of hair, skin and nails. A few folk beauty treatments include shampooing with beer, and some people have even been known to enjoy a beer bath.

In fact, I’ve enjoyed a beer bath myself. I’ve actually taken two baths in beer, the first at Landhotel Moorhof in Austria and an even better one at the Czech Chodovar brewery when I was researching Good Beer Guide Prague and the Czech Republic. Of course, I’ve also had beers poured on my head and dumped in my lap in pubs, and many times I’ve attempted to wash away my sins in a steady stream of lager. Perhaps more importantly, I have also occasionally been known to use soap.

So I picked up a bottle (resembling a tallboy, very cute) of Beer Shampoo and Beer Shower Gel, as well as a bar of Manufaktura’s Beer Soap, and took them home for a standard evaluation and rating.

Beer Shampoo. Pours a clear deep gold with no visible carbonation and a loose, chalky foam. The nose includes welcoming notes of ginger, sweet vanilla and bright citrus. Although beer is listed as the third ingredient after water and sodium laureth sulfate, it has an unpleasant mouthfeel and flavor. The finish is dry with the lasting scent of rich malt. Overall, a good shampoo in the classic Bohemian Pilsner style. 4.5 out of 5.

Beer Shower Gel. Clear amber with a thick, creamy foam and again, no visible carbonation. The nose hints of honey and wildflowers, including linden and clover. Beer is again the third ingredient but by now I am unwilling to judge mouthfeel or flavor. Body is smooth and clean with a lasting light spicy fragrance akin to a saison or a pale bière de garde. 4 out of 5.

Beer Soap. Cloudy amber with many visible particulates and a yeasty nose. On the skin, hints of malt and freshly baked bread rinsing to a clean, even finish. Overall 3.7 out of 5 (4.2 for style).

If you’re in Prague and you want to pick up your own beer soap and shampoo, there’s a Manufaktura kiosk in the bottom floor of Tesco (closest to the entrance on Národní), as well as the main store at Melantrichova 17 (near metro Můstek) and of course Manufaktura’s online shop.

Or just stay tuned to Beer Culture, as next month we’ll give away Czech Beer Cosmetics in our very first reader contest. Sure, maybe we can’t send you to Prague’s newest brewpub. Maybe we can’t send you on a to-die-for brewery tour of Moravian Silesia. But a bar of beer soap? Klidně.

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.

The Czech Republic is home to a whole bundle of brews from specific places: known quantities like Pilsner Urquell (from the West Bohemian town of Plzeň) and Budějovický Budvar (from České Budějovice), as well as rarer birds like Žamberk’s fantastic Žamberecký Kanec, Pardubice’s Pardubický Porter, Velichov’s impossible-to-find (but oh-so-worth-it) Velichovský Forman, along with about 500 other truly outstanding local faves. But in the midst of this very rich beer culture, what we don’t have are many brews that are specific to a certain time of year. One of the few exceptions is showing up right about now: Vánoční piva, or Christmas beers.

Occasionally called sváteční piva (holiday beers), Christmas beers are brewed at higher gravities than standard Czech lagers, generally starting at 13° and heading north fast, resulting in slightly (or much) higher alcohol than normal. (It’s cold here, people — we need something to get the blood going.) Unfortunately, these are almost always limited editions and can be very difficult to find, either on tap or in bottles.

But just this weekend, the Vánoční pivní trhy (Christmas Beer Markets) takes place at Prague’s Výstaviště exhibition grounds, serving about a dozen of these unique winter warmers, as well as a one-off special created especially for the festival.

Taking place Friday through Sunday, December 14-16, the Christmas Beer Markets are set to include tastings, seminars on food and beer pairings, a commemorative tasting glass from Sahm, as well as the release of Old Ale, a top-fermented Czech brew with 8.2% ABV. The Old Ale has been brewed especially for the Christmas Beer Markets at Minipivovar Žamberk using a recipe from Jan Šuráň of Pivovarský dům and a blend of eight yeasts selected by David Bryant of Colorado’s Brewing Science Institute. (This is only one of several Czech-American co-productions that have been showing up lately, but more on that another time.)

The hours for the festival are Friday 13-19h, Saturday and Sunday 10-19h. Entry is 25 Kč (about $1.50, or just under €1), with an extra 50 Kč for the Sahm tasting glass. It’s certainly not hard to find: Výstaviště is the very large exhibition grounds in Praha 7-Holešovice, a massive Secession building next to the even-more-massive T-Mobile Arena. It has its own tram stop (“Výstaviště”) and is served by the 5, 12, 14, 15 and 17 trams. If you catch a 17 tram at Staroměstská (direction Sídliště Ďáblice), you’ll be there in about 10 minutes.

The growth of Christmas beers is a welcome addition to our local beer culture: it wasn’t long ago when most brewers here just added a Christmas label to their regular beers without changing the recipe in the slightest. Recently, however, it’s become a time for breweries to show off what they can do with a touch more alcohol and stronger flavors. For example, the Christmas beer currently on draft at Prague’s Klášterní pivovar Strahov is brewed at 19° and ends up with 7.7% alcohol. According to my colleague Max Bahnson, el Filosofo Cervecero, it’s a rich amber in color and is amazingly hoppy in the finish.

By way of contrast, this year’s Vánoční special from West Bohemia’s Chodovar is brewed at 13° and ends up with 5.1% alcohol. It’s a clear deep gold with very mild carbonation, a malty nose and a full malt body and flavor in the mouth, followed by a pleasantly bittersweet finish. However, it’s worth noting that this is exactly the profile of Chodovar’s year-round special, which also is brewed at 13°, and also with 5.1% alcohol. So is this really a Christmas beer, or is it just the standard special with a new label?

The point of this column is to ask exactly that kind of question — and to answer as many such queries as we can. In the coming weeks and months we’ll bring you regular news on beer and brewing from around the Czech Republic and further afield, including a more detailed look at that 19° Christmas beer from Strahov and two new brewpubs set to open in Prague. Got questions? Send ‘em in. Got comments? Post away. Until then, na zdraví!