There’s more information about the Christmas Beer Markets taking place next weekend, December 20, 21 and 22, right here in Prague. Not only will some of the best Czech brewers bring their holiday and seasonal specials to the capital, but next weekend’s festival will also include a handful of great names in brewing from around Europe.

If you’re at all interested in craft beer, you won’t want to miss a single one of the festival’s just-announced foreign brews.

From the announcement at www.pivnidenik.cz:

The Christmas Beer Markets take place next Saturday, Sunday and Monday, December 20–22, at Prague’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel.

Beyond domestic — meaning Czech — seasonal beers from craft producers, this year’s festival will include several notable foreign specialties.

Germany’s legendary wheat brewer Schneider Weisse will offer Aventinus Weizenstarkbier, an outrageously good wheat Doppelbock, as well as the special Aventinus Weizen-Eisbock rocking 12% alcohol by volume.

Two as-yet-unnamed surprises will come from the Bamberg region.

From Denmark’s Nørrebro Bryghus, attendees will be able to sample various beer styles including the brewery’s brown ale, IPA, stout, coffee stout, Imperial IPA and more.

From Scotland, beer from the Inveralmond Brewery.

Also from Scotland, BrewDog — makers of the excellent Punk IPA — will offer beers including the 10%-alcohol Paradox, a deep and mysterious Imperial Stout aged in whiskey casks from some of Scotland’s greatest distilleries.

As a kicker, the Christmas Beer Markets will also include a selection of beers from Belgium.

That’s a big step up in terms of variety from last year’s Christmas Beer Markets. The only thing that’s missing is the cult Norwegian brewery Nøgne Ø, whose Dark Horizon Second Edition (17.5% alcohol) the organizers planned to include, though the price and the expense of delivery proved to be a bridge too far.

Which just gives us something to look forward to next year.

Christmas Beer Markets
December 20, 21 and 22 (Saturday, Sunday and Monday)
Inside the Mandarin Oriental Hotel (Nebovidská 1, Prague 1—Malá Strana)
Tram: 12, 20 or 22 to Hellichova
Two sessions daily: 1-5 p.m. and 6-10 p.m.
Entry: 150 Kč including glass and one beer

For more information, see the previous Beer Culture post on the Christmas Beer Markets.

First anniversary: Paper. Fifth anniversary: Wood. Fiftieth anniversary: Gold.

Five hundred and fifty-fifth: One very special lager.

Or at least that’s how it is for Pivovar Rakovník, a Czech brewery originally founded in 1454. To celebrate its 555th birthday next year, Rakovník is adding a “jubilee special” to its Bakalář line of beers. And though 2009 is still most of a month away, the new brew is already available at Pivní galerie.

Bakalář Jubilejní Speciál is brewed at a high-grade 18° Plato, approximately Doppelbock strength, but with slightly less alcohol at 7%, compared to 7.5% or more in a typical Munich Doppelbock. In this case, the alcohol is very well incorporated, meaning you’re not likely to notice it, though it’s roughly akin to drinking two basic lagers simultaneously. The beer is a clear deep amber in appearance with a very fine, very creamy head.

From the bottle, there’s a nice touch of malt and pumpkin-pie spice in the nose; the aromas seemed to be slightly more pronounced when I tried it on tap. In both cases, the mouthfeel is chewy and rich — starting to approximate the syrupy nature of Březňák’s Doppel-Doppel Bock — with notes of cooked plums, maple syrup and cinnamon. The lasting finish has just a slightly bitter hop bite to it.

Overall, it’s a very nice strong beer and rather unique on the Czech market: most special lagers at this strength are lighter in color and far sweeter than this one. It sounds — and tastes — like an excellent way to celebrate an anniversary.

Rakovník brewery has a long and noble brewing history, and was renowned for its bottom-fermented beers, or lagers, when most of the Czech lands were still making the top-fermented beers that we would probably call ales today. There’s even a Latin rhyme from the era that serves as the brewery’s current motto: “Unus papa Romae, unus portus Anconae, una turris Cremonae, una ceres Raconae,” which is said to mean something like “One pope in Rome, one port in Ancona, one tower in Cremona, one beer in Rakovník.” (Latin scholars have hinted that the grammar is questionable, but that’s what’s on the label.)

The back of the bottle gives an indication of where the brewery is going today:

Like many medium-sized Czech brewers, Rakovník is getting by on exports, in this case primarily to Russia. The Prague Daily Monitor is reporting today that Czech beer exports are up 4% over the first nine months of the year, though overall production declined marginally. The Rakovník history article at Pivovary.info quotes management as saying they’re planning on exporting 80% of production; by 2006, the amount going to Russia was three times the size of what Rakovník was selling in its homeland.

So do your part to help a local brewer out. Pick up a few bottles of Bakalář Jubilejní Speciál today.

One of the big events of the December beer calendar in Prague is the arrival of the “Svatý Norbert speciální polotmavé vánoční pivo” at Klášterní pivovar Strahov, the brewpub on the Strahov Monastery grounds near Prague Castle. Also known as “Saint Norbert special half-dark Christmas beer,” this strong lager shows up every year on December 5.

But before the beer’s official arrival on Friday, things kicks off in true holiday spirit with a “Christmas Beer Mass” taking place inside the brewpub the evening before.

Described as the “Festive Sanctification of St. Norbert Christmas Beer,” the holiday choral concert starts at 6 p.m. on Thursday, December 4, with a “Beer Mass” interpretation of the traditional “Hej Mistře” Czech Christmas mass by J.J. Ryba.

The “Beer Mass” will be performed by Collegium Strahoviense, the Strahov Temple Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Vladimír Roubal.

Tickets for the beer mass, available at the brewpub, are 300 Kč and include beer.

Speaking of which, the Christmas special from Strahov is a renowned brew. Unfortunately, it doesn’t easily fit into categories or beer styles that are particularly well-known abroad: the brewery says it is akin to a Doppelbock, though this beer is often far hoppier than most Doppelbocks. Brewed with Pilsner, Munich, Caramel and Carapils malts, I believe it is also a deeper amber color than most of the Doppelbocks at Starkbierzeit.

However, it perfectly fits into the Czech beer category of “vánoční” or Christmas beers, and it’s easily one of the most interesting such brews in the country. Max Bahnson has a good description of last year’s version over at Pivní Filosof.

Listed on the brewery’s website at 19° Plato / Balling and 7.7% alcohol, I got the impression from brewmaster Martin Matuška that this year’s version was actually brewed a touch stronger. Unfortunately, I won’t make the concert myself, as I’m hosting a private beer tasting at the same time. But if you’re interested in holiday cheer and great beer, the Czech beer mass at Klášterní Pivovar Strahov could be something for you.

You might even call it a religious experience.

Christmas Beer Mass
When: 6 p.m., Thursday, December 4, 2008
Where: Klášterní Pivovar Strahov, Strahovské nádvoří 301, Prague 1 (Tram 22 or 23 to Pohořelec)
Tel: +420 233 353 155
Cost: 300 Kč

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.