AUTHOR’S NOTE: It now appears that Heineken did not apply for the “Czech Beer” designation for its own brew, but rather on the part of Krušovice. This post has been corrected.

Today’s Prague Daily Monitor has a translation of a story from the Czech newspaper Hospodářské Noviny on the first beers to use the České Pivo (“Czech Beer”) label. Officially approved by the EU last autumn, the label is a mark of Protected Geographical Indication that indicates minimal levels of local products, traditional methods of production, and the beer’s place of origin.

And the first brand listed in the story is Heineken.

That is to say that Heineken, virtually synonymous with Holland, is said to be among the first brewers to apply for and use the official EU designation of “Czech Beer.” While an earlier version of this post assumed that Czech-brewed Heineken would qualify as “Czech Beer,” it now appears that Heineken has only applied on behalf of its Krušovice subsidiary. However, problems with the designation remain.

When we first reported this story, Honza Kočka commented that his brewery, Kocour, apparently wouldn’t qualify for the designation, despite traditional methods of production and Czech ingredients, simply because its location — inside the Czech Republic but very close to the country’s northern border — lay outside the area described by the regulations.

If my reading of the “Czech Beer” regulations is correct, a highly hopped pale lager with more than the upper limit of 45 EBC units of bitterness will not qualify for the “Czech Beer” label, no matter where it is made.

Also interesting: the designation will include a range of beers from 2.6% to 6% alcohol by volume. Meaning if a beer has 6.5% alcohol, it no longer qualifies to call itself “Czech Beer,” despite having 100% Czech ingredients.

However, the beers that do qualify as “Czech Beer” don’t technically have to use 100% Czech ingredients — nothing close to it. Take wonderful Czech Saaz hops, for example, which might be considered a key element of Czech beer. The regulations state:

The minimum quantity of Czech hops or products processed from them is 30 % for pale lagers and at least 15 % for other types of beer.

That is to say: if a pale lager uses 30% Czech hops and 70% Chinese hops, it can still be “Czech Beer.”

Of course, Krušovice and other famous dark lagers can get by with up to 85% Chinese hops and still call themselves “Czech Beer.”

If there was any doubt about the efficacy of the label before, it is now clear exactly how much sense it makes.

By all means, have a Czech beer. But there’s no need to look for the “Czech Beer” label to do so.

Last year I was invited to work for the Czech newspaper Lidové noviny as their weekly restaurant reviewer. For most of us, that might sound like a dream job, but I had already spent more than five years as the restaurant reviewer at the Prague Post, even seeing a story from there included in Best Food Writing 2005, and I had little interest in returning to the same task, especially since I was having so much fun writing travel stories from all around Europe. Despite being flattered by the offer, I passed, suggesting instead that the editors contact the Prague Spoon’s Laura Baranik, who has since taken to it swimmingly.

But resolutions are meant to be broken, and I’ve recently agreed to occasionally review a few restaurants for Lidové noviny, either when Ms. Baranik is on vacation or as a means of helping out with what I know is very stressful, very demanding work.

To be honest, I’ve enjoyed writing reviews again much more than I thought I would. I even managed to get something about good beer into this weekend’s article.

Here’s a piece on the expat-friendly restaurant Vermeer, which got the local spodní prádlo in a clove hitch when word of its classic American diner sandwiches first hit the food forum at Expats.cz. In case you’d rather read it in English, I’ll post the entire English version at some point, but for now, here’s the relevant paragraph:

This kind of food goes extremely well with a great beer, but Vermeer offers Krušovice Mušketýr (35 Kč per .5l) with Heineken (65 Kč) as its top choice on draft, which the owner told me is because he wants to provide what foreigners want. Speaking as a foreigner, I can tell you I didn’t move to the Czech Republic to drink Dutch beer. What I want — and what many other expatriates here are absolutely crazy about — are the outstanding, extremely flavorful beers from small producers like Pivovar Kout na Šumavě and Pivovar Kocour Varnsdorf. Personally, I’d gladly pay a higher price for those beers. For Krušovice, not unless I’m very thirsty. For Heineken, absolutely never.

Call it one small strategic strike for craft beer in Prague. But the bigger picture is this: restaurateurs may care (or claim to care) about the food and drink they serve. But in a beer-loving country like the Czech Republic, a restaurant owner who cares enough to have food items imported especially for him will still offer the biggest, blandest, most mass-produced beer around.

I undertand it’s hard to watch over every single aspect of your restaurant, and if you haven’t had any kind of education in beer, it might be hard to understand what difference it makes. But believing that your customers prefer to drink overpriced Heineken — a so-called “Pilsner” — in the very country that invented Pilsner brewing? In a country that loves beer so much it drinks more of it than anyone else in the world?

Just hypothetically: if you opened a stylish restaurant in, say, Paris, how much attention would you pay to the wine? Do you think that if you offered a high-volume cabernet sauvignon or a so-called “Burgundy” from the biggest industrial winery in California, your customers would be into that? Would you tell people it’s because that’s what tourists want?

Well, just my 40 hellers. In any case, I’ll be reviewing regularly while Ms. Baranik is out this month; after that, I’ll continue to contribute pieces to Lidové noviny occasionally, in addition to my regular work for Concierge.com (where I cover Prague, Budapest, Ljubljana, Dubrovnik and the Dalmatian Coast), and the travel section of the New York Times (where so far I’ve reviewed restaurants in Prague, Budapest and Vienna). At the moment I’m not planning to sneak craft beer references into forthcoming restaurant reviews in any of those publications. But you know, sometimes plans change.

I spent much of Tuesday with el Pivero, first with a stop for lunch at Zlý časy out at náměstí Bratří Synků in Prague 4-Nusle. I used to live around the corner, so it was interesting to see how much the neighborhood has changed. First there’s the new brewpub, Bašta. Just a short stumble away is Zlý časy, an atmospheric cellar pub with two rotating taps of special beers in addition to regular brews from rarely seen Kácov.

On our visit, Zlý časy’s two special taps were dedicated to favorites from far-off brewpubs: the hoppy ležák from Moritz in Olomouc and the excellent (and fruity) wheat beer from U krále Ječmínka in Prostějov. I’d enjoyed both while researching Good Beer Guide Prague and the Czech Republic, but I’ve never seen either in Prague. The lunch wasn’t bad either, just like el Pivero said.

And then he mentioned something that made me want to get up and walk across town. Pivovarský dům, sister bar to Pivovarský klub and one of the centers of beer culture in Prague, had supposedly installed a handpump.

That is, a proper, CAMRA-approved, British handpump. Right here in Lagerland.

So Señor Pivero and I finished our beers, walked over to Štěpánská and stuck our heads in the door at Pivovarský dům. They had the full run of beers, including what must be the last few liters of their special májový kozlík, a very rich amber Maibock. And right next to all the gas taps was the shiny new handpump.

It wasn’t hooked up as of yesterday, but the waitress said it should be working within the next month or so. When asked what it would draft, she said stout. Their own, apparently.

Which is more than coincidental, as the new stout from the Pivovar Kocour Varnsdorf has been on draft at Pivovarský klub for most of the past week. It’s like a big chocolate bonbon, full of flavor and yet not too sweet. It’s excellent, but it might be even better drawn via handpump.

Why does it make a difference? Connoisseurs of real ales say that the mouthfeel and taste of handpumped beers are vastly superior to those pumped by carbon dioxide, which tends to make drinks fizzy and flavorless. (Explanations, protestations, allegations and fighting words to the subject are welcome in the comments.)

So: is this really the only handpump in Prague? (I imagine one of the tourist-trap Irish bars might have one. But do they really count?)

Considering pale lagers constitute 95% of consumption here, having just two *real* stouts on draft in Prague  might not seem like much — but it is a start. And while this handpump might be the first to appear here, I doubt if it’s the last.

If you’re interested in trying unusual beers, Zlý časy is a great alternative to Pivovarský klub. From the outside it looks like this:

and here’s the contact information:

One of the big events of American brewing is called the World Beer Cup, which took place last weekend in San Diego, California. Also known as the “Beer Olympics,” every two years the World Beer Cup hands out gold, silver and bronze medals in 91 beer categories, including one for the so-called “Bohemian-style Pilsener.”

Unlike the strangely named World Series, the World Beer Cup actually claims to have an international scope, noting that it had entries from 56 countries and judges from 18 different lands at the last event in 2006. At least a few Czechs served as judges at the 2008 competition, including Jan Šuráň from Pivo Praha / Pivovarský dům and Honza Kočka from Pivovar Kocour Varnsdorf and Pivnidenik.cz.

The results are out. Two Czech beers won medals at the World Beer Cup.

For the world’s best “non-alcoholic malt beverage,” a gold medal — first place — to Radegast Birell from the Pilsner Urquell group.

For the world’s best “Bohemian-style Pilsener,” a bronze medal — third place — to Gambrinus Premium from the Pilsner Urquell group.

And that’s it.

(Silence.)

Ahem.

If you’re a fan of Czech beer, these results are surprising.

How can I put this? I guess I could say that Gambrinus Premium is not widely thought of as our country’s best brew.

In fact, it’s not even thought of as the Pilsner Urquell group’s best brew. If Gambrinus Premium wins a medal for “Bohemian-style Pilsener” and Pilsner Urquell doesn’t even place, something is off: as you might expect, Pilsner Urquell is the brewery’s flagship, and widely considered the beer of the highest overall quality among high-volume Pilsner-style beers in the Czech lands. By contrast, it would be an understatement to say that Gambrinus has a less-than-glowing reputation here.

Was Pilsner Urquell not entered?

Were no other Czech beers present in San Diego?

Are we supposed to understand that Gambrinus Pilsner actually is the best golden lager from the Czech lands?

(What fools we are! All this time we’ve been drinking rich, luscious lagers from regional producers, when we could have been enjoying Gambrinus!)

So much for Bohemian “Pilsener.” (On that note, how can I trust a competition that claims knowledge over, for example, German brewing styles, but which has trouble using the correct German orthography? Forget the extra E on Pilsner, I’m talking about when the Brewers Association guidelines repeatedly spelled Leipzig’s great sour beer as “Göse” instead of Gose.)

And while Radegast nonalcoholic doesn’t have the same reputation, it’s hard to believe it’s the best such beer in the world when a couple of other Czech nonalcoholic brews taste better: mainly, those from Bernard. SPP, the Czech beer consumers’ organization, seems to agree, awarding Bernard the prize for nonalcoholic beer of the year at their awards ceremony in 2007. Even people who don’t like beer rate Bernard’s nonalcoholic above Radegast.

It’s hard to think much of the awards announcement without knowing more about who was present and who was judging. For now, it gets a big meh.

But I can add this: from Europe, the World Beer Cup does seems a lot like the World Series — another American event that claims a global perspective while reinforcing a widespread opinion of American myopia.

And when I say widespread, I do not mean “widespread in America.” I mean widespread in the world.

Back to Czech topics, as the Prague Daily Monitor has an interesting-slash-weird story today, translated from the local newspaper Hospodářské noviny, on “drinkability” and Czech beer (subscription required). You have to puzzle your way through a confused plot before you get to the punch line:

“Japanese researchers once presented laboratory rats with a bowl containing water and another with Czech beer. ‘First of all, the rats went for the beer. But when the scientists replaced the Czech beer with a foreign brand, the rats preferred water,’” said a scientist at the Czech Research Institute of Malting and Brewing.

That’s right. According to Czech scientists, Japanese rats prefer Czech beer to water, though they prefer water to foreign beers. (Many thanks to OptaDesign for the illustration.)

How’s that for a buried lede? Reading through it again, the story seems to imply that it is “drinkability” — not low-sulfate water, not a decoction mash, not Saaz hops, not Haná barley — that is the hallmark of Czech beer, a term which is apparently still getting closer to becoming a protected name under EU law. (But not any closer than, say, last month. What is the point of this article, anyway?)

As for “české pivo” as a protected name, I’m not very optimistic, as it doesn’t differentiate a great Czech beer made by hand from a mediocre Czech beer made in a factory.

Instead, we need a Czech term for “craft beer” — or “artisanal beer,” promoted as “birra artigianale” in Italy — to differentiate the product on the basis of its quality and how it is produced, rather than its mere geography.

As Honza K0čka pointed out, the new craft brewery Pivovar Kocour Varnsdorf won’t be able to use the term “české pivo” as it is outside the boundaries of the name as defined on the application, though of course the brewery lies within the boundaries of the Czech Republic. Presumably many of the larger Czech breweries making beers of lower quality would still be able to use the “Czech beer” term — rendering it, in my opinion, completely pointless.

Can we get back to talking about things that actually matter?

As long as “Czech beer” is being promoted for imprecise characteristics like “drinkability” or a questionably defined geographic area of origin, we’re a long ways from talking about real craft and variety.

(Another gem from the article: “To put it simply – after finishing the first Czech beer, a consumer wants another, though he’s not thirsty any more.” Really? That’s what makes Czech beer different from the others? Please allow me to point out that the homeless guys drinking in front of the supermarket seem to feel that way about every beer — not just those miracle brews from inside the magic boundaries of “české pivo.”)

Now that that’s over, can we do something productive? For example, could we come up with a way to promote those few Czech beers that are still made using traditional open fermenters? Unlike the beers produced in cylindroconical vessels, the beers made with open fermenters have a clear distinction: they almost always taste better.

I’m sure the rats will agree.

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.

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.

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.