Right now, Richter Brewery in Prague has something similar on tap: a polotmavý (half-dark, meaning amber) Weißbier. It’s brewed at a conventional 13° with about 5% alcohol, versus 18.5° and a massive 8.2% for the brawny German.

The strength might be the biggest difference between the two, as some of the flavors and aromas are quite similar. The nose of the Polotmavý Weißbier has cooked plums and chocolate and cocoa notes with just a breath of citrus acidity. In the mouth, it starts out with fairly sweet and complex fruitcake flavors before a dry finish.

Half-liters of Richter’s Polotmavý Weißbier are 35 Kč. Get one while you can.

Perhaps most typical of the style are the Vánoční speciál from Pivovar Krakonoš and the Speciál 14% from Pivovar Poutník in Pelhřimov.

Brewed at 14°, the Krakonoš Vánoční speciál has a very moderate 5.8% alcohol (“moderate” considering this is meant to be a winter warmer). The winter-themed label features the Krakonoš giant, the spirit of the Krkonoše, or Giant Mountains, with the number 14 prominently displayed above the brewery’s foundation year of 1582. The label lists water, barley malt, sugar, hops and hop extract as ingredients.

It pours a clear pale gold with a loose white head that fades quite quickly. It has much more carbonation than many Czech lagers and is more than slightly fizzy. It has a nose of grain with a touch of raw corn and honey. In the mouth, there is a sweet, malty kick-start with some light vanilla notes rounding out into a full, buttery mouthfeel and finishing with more than a hint of butterscotch.

It’s very similar to the Speciál 14% from Pivovar Poutník in Pelhřimov, which also has 5.8% alcohol and which also lists sugar as its third ingredient, though unlike Krakonoš, the Poutník beer specifies the use of Saaz hops on the label. In the glass it is a clear light gold with an inconsequential white foam of no duration, and has a fine, fizzy, champagne-like carbonation. The bouquet is of sugar and vanilla with some fruitiness. It has a thin body with a burst of sweetness, some notes of hard candy and tutti-frutti followed by a slightly medicinal finish.

These two beers are probably not for everyone: hardcore beer fans might criticize them for not being interesting or flavorful enough, while Gambrinus drinkers would fault them for being too filling. Regardless, both are fairly typical holiday brews in these parts.

Or perhaps they were typical holiday offerings: today, more and more Czech brewers seem to be making more flavorful brews for the holidays. Much like the Opat and Strahov versions, Pivovar Bašta in Prague is offering a pair of tmavý (dark) and polotmavý (half-dark) Christmas beers brewed at 15°; other small brewers such as Milan Rambousek have produced wonderful strong dark Christmas beers.

We’ll be tasting a bunch of the best this Thursday, December 18, at the Czech Beer Academy’s Christmas beer tasting (RSVP at tel. +420 233 088 612 or via e-mail at moprg-pr@mohg.com). And even more should show up at this weekend’s Christmas Beer Markets, a can’t-miss event for lovers of real beer.

Pivovar Broumov — aka Opat — is one of the country’s most interesting small breweries, regularly making an appearance at the Czech Beer Academy’s beer tastings with their “extra-hopped” medium-bodied beer, Opat Bitter extra-chmelené, one of the most aromatic pale lagers in the country. Other noteworthy models from Opat include beers flavored with honey and a new arrival made with coriander.

But this time of year is for Opat’s great Christmas brew: the 17° Sváteční speciál. Among Czech holiday beers in bottles, this one stands out.

In part, the Opat — or Abbot — has a much higher profile because it’s one of the stronger such brews, brewed at 17° Plato / Balling and bearing 6.6% alcohol, rather than the typical 14° Plato and 6%. However, it carries its higher payload quite subtly.

There’s actually quite a bit of subtlety going on: it pours a beautiful light amber with a loose, creamy head (and describes itself as a polotmavý, or half-dark). At refrigerator temps, the nose is rather attenuated; at cellar temperature and higher, the bouquet starts to open up with hints of vanilla, pie spices and stewed fruits. In Czech food terms, it smells just like povidlová buchta with a rich vanilla cream sauce. Ask your babička.

The mouthfeel is only slightly chewy; the carbonation is minimal. There are more vanilla and spice notes in the mouth, as well as serious hints of honey and caramel. (The beer is not brewed with spices, however: it just tastes that way.) The sweet initial flavors are followed by a pleasant astringence and a lasting aroma of Saaz hops.

Opat 17° Sváteční speciál is a minor classic: perhaps not something you’d need to drink every day, but certainly something you wouldn’t want to miss over the holiday season. Though it has dessertlike aromas and flavors, those would really disappear when paired with a sugary holiday sweet, instead highlighting the beer’s innate bitterness. Instead, I’d consider pairing this with a creamy soup or a moderately sweet cream sauce like svičková to play off the difference in mouthfeel and the beer’s peppery hop notes.

Whatever you eat with it, do so while you can: I found my bottle at Pivovarský klub, and they also carry it at several Opat outlets in Prague and around the country. The sign outside the new Vinný ráj (Za Poříčskou branou 11, Praha 8; just steps from metro Florenc and one block from Pivovarský klub), says that it is currently available in bottles, with the lovely Bitter extra-chmelené on draft.

About half a year back, we had a tasting of beers from Pivovar Strakonice, a complete run-down of the brewery’s lineup in the cellar of Pivovarský klub.

Afterwards, a few of us — ah, who am I kidding? It was just me and Max Bahnson — started grousing about the event, especially regarding the company’s marketing. Later, we were told that our comments had been reported to the directors of the brewery.

Six months later, it almost looks like they listened.

At the time, our big complaints about Strakonice beers were the following:

1) The brewery had no clear brand identity. Some beers were labelled “Strakonice,” some were labelled “Dudák,” and some “Nektar,” with one oddball (the 10° pale lager) not bearing any of those names. Our question: how can you hope to build brand loyalty when the consumer doesn’t know what brand it is he’s buying?

2) Unpasteurized beers are big now: Bernard and Svijany, for example, are basing entire advertising campaigns on the fact that their beers do not undergo pasteurization. And even though all of Strakonice’s beers are unpasteurized (as we found out once we asked), somehow the brewery had forgot to put that on the label.

3) The brewery was producing three virtually indistinguishable pale lagers at 10°, 11° and 12°. And while polotmavé pivo — “half-dark” or amber, our vestigial descendant of Anton Dreher’s legendary Vienna lager — is one of four brewing trends in the Czech Republic, Strakonice didn’t offer one. How hard would it be to put out an amber?

Well, we got the answer to that question with the arrival of the brewery’s new Klostermann polotmavý ležák (half-dark lager), named after the bilingual Czech author Karel Klostermann, a resident of the area around Strakonice and nearby Písek. Since I’m spending a lot of time in the area this summer, I stopped by last week to check things out.

Coming in with 5.1% alcohol, Klostermann pours a beautiful clear amber with a light tan head. The nose is malty and nutty; the body is surprisingly light for a malty beer, and there are some lovely semi-sweet maple notes before the slightly bitter finish.

While it might not be the country’s best amber, it strikes me as an ideal brew for this summer. And once again, it’s proof that state- (or city-) owned breweries can innovate: much like Pivovar Primátor and the city of Náchod, Pivovar Strakonice is apparently still owned by the city of Strakonice.

In fact, Klostermann answers two of our marketing complaints in one swoop. Not only is it a polotmavé, but the label proudly says that this it is also nepasterované pivo.

All that we need is for the label to actually say Pivovar Strakonice on it and we’ll have a hat trick.

There’s a fair amount of beer in the Swedish capital, and much of it seems to be Czech. Step into a bar in the trendy neighborhood of Södermalm and you’ll probably see Krušovice and Pilsner Urquell as often as anything else. Czech lagers seem to be frequently sold as premium imports here, an in the case of Starobrno’s position at the top of the list at Pet Sounds Bar, a chic offshoot of a legendary local record shop. A few other Czech brands — including Primátor — show up at the many outlets of Systembolaget, the Swedish government’s alcohol monopoly.

And then there’s Stockholm’s Švejk pub.

Despite the similarity of the name, Krogen Soldaten Švejk is unlike any of the Švejk pubs — or any pubs — you might have seen in Prague. To start, look at the beer list.

On draft, Krogen Soldaten Švejk offers:

1. Bernard 12° světlý ležák.
2. Bernard kvasnicový ležák.
3. Bernard 13° tmavý.
4. Primátor Premium.
5. Primátor Polotmavý.
6. Platan Premium.
7. Bohemia Regent 12°.
8. Krušovice Mušketýr.
9. Rohozec Skalák.
10. Pilsner Urquell.
11. Gambrinus 12° světlý ležák.

That is to say that while most bars in Prague carry just one brand, Krogen Soldaten Švejk offers eleven Czech beers on draft, most of which the pub imports itself.

“Urquell we buy from an agent, Krušovice too, but the others we bring in ourselves,” said Jari Ounasvuori, the pub’s manager. “Every two months, we bring in a truck filled with kegs of our beers, and we have a lagering facility about 30 kilometers outside of town.”

Founded by a Czech émigré — Ounasvuori’s father-in-law — way back in 1974, Krogen Soldaten Švejk had to wait until 1996 to serve its first real Czech lager. (The first was Bohemia Regent; others were added over time. At one point, the pub also stocked Budvar, Ounasvuori said, but it was given up due to difficulties with that brand’s local distributor.)

To pair with the pivo, there’s Czech grub as well: goulash, potato pancakes, schnitzel and vepřoknedlozelo. And as a digestif, Krogen Soldaten Švejk has Czech slivovice. Due to the draconic nature of Swedish alcohol taxation, however, slivovice creates a black hole, at least in business terms.

“Because of the alcohol level, I pay so much in taxes on the slivovice that I don’t make any real profit,” Ounasvuori said. “But I wanted to have it.”

While there’s nothing quite like Krogen Soldaten Švejk anywhere else in Stockholm, Ounasvuori said that there’s been some talk of Pilsner Urquell opening one of their Pilsner Urquell Original Restaurants in the Swedish capital.

“But they have to realize that won’t work here,” Ounasvuori said. “People here won’t go to a pub with just one kind of beer. This isn’t Prague.”

Amen to that. It is ironic, however, that it’s easier to find a Czech beer like Skalák on draft in Stockholm than in Prague. In fact, I can’t think of a single pub that serves eleven beers on draft anywhere in the Czech lands. The closest might be the legendary Modrý Abbé, but that’s more than a few taps shorter than Krogen Soldaten Švejk.

As for the beer, I thought that Bernard’s kvasnicové tasted a bit different when I tried it at Krogen Soldaten Švejk: slightly spicier and denser in flavor than normal, perhaps due to the trip, or maybe to the extended lagering. The only other significant difference from home was the pub’s vibrant atmosphere, with a great mix of young and old and a bustling, neighborly feel that is sadly lacking in most Prague beer halls.

I’ll be happy, however, if pubs in Prague merely followed Krogen Soldaten Švejk’s lead in offering a greater variety — and greater quality — of draft beer. If they do that, the improved atmosphere will surely follow.

News roundup: my colleague Max Bahnson has a post on a few beers from Žatec, including the new Xantho (above). The label calls it a dark, but to me it seems more like a polotmavý (half-dark), aka jantar (amber), also known as granát (garnet), as well as “something like Vienna lager in the Czech lands.” Max will catch you up on pivo from the town otherwise known as Saaz, though he didn’t get to my current favorite from the brewery, Lučan Premium Tmavé, a chocolatey dark lager that my local corner shop usually stocks for just 8.50 Kč per half-liter, the equivalent of €.34 or about $.50.

Such low prices are on their way out, according to a recent article from Prague Monitor and Hospodářské noviny, who report that smaller Czech breweries are raising their prices (subscription required), following the lead of major brewers last November. Pilsner Urquell remains the most expensive, and if you want to know just how much your publican currently shells out for that half-liter of Urquell, the answer is 18.90 Kč (€.75 / $1.10). Smaller brewers, for all their quality, still charge far less, though last year’s 100% increase in the price of malt, the article says, results in a direct cost hike of about 30% for the breweries. At least some of that will be passed on to consumers in the near term.

Thirst is a powerful force, however, and the article notes that higher prices are unlikely to affect production. In fact, last year Czech brewers hit a record high of 20 million hectoliters (about 12.2 million barrels, if I’ve got the numbers right — feel free to check my math). The article concluded with more good news from the Bernard family brewery: Bernard’s production for January 2008 is up 28%, despite raising prices by 10% last year.

But wait, it gets better.

Several months ago there was a tasting in Prague of beers from Strakonice, a fine old South Bohemian brewery that makes decent Pilsner-style brews. But one of the most striking things at the tasting was how limited the brewery’s line was — three virtually indistinguishable golden lagers brewed at 10°, 11° and 12° — and how truly wonky their marketing is (the brewery uses the names Strakonice, Dudák, Nektar and Měšťanský pivovar, and the 10° golden lager, called “Měšťanská desítka,” or “Burghers’ Ten,” doesn’t have a visible “Strakonice” anywhere on the label.) Some of us pointed out that it is impossible to build brand loyalty when consumers can’t tell what brand it is they are drinking, and asked how freaking difficult would it be for Strakonice to brew a 13° amber lager, noting that this is hardly an obscure style at this point — in fact, it’s a growing trend here, as I’ve said before.

Well, last week the Czech newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes reported that Strakonice will launch its new 13° polotmavé pivo, Klostermann, later this month. Unfortunately, there’s still no word on the confusing labels and Strakonice’s multitude of heteronyms, which certainly isn’t helping the region’s last city-owned brewery — the article noted that Strakonice’s sales dipped by 2,000 last year to just 74,000 hectoliters. But given the unexpected appearance of Klostermann, dare we go on to suggest a wheat beer? Or even a dark lager brewed at 18° or above? Dare we recommend they offer a quality non-alcoholic beer, or even an amber non-alcoholic beer as Bernard has done? City-owned breweries can certainly innovate. The question is only if they can do it in time.

I have a story about new restaurants in Vienna in this weekend’s NYT. This is another Choice Tables feature, not a beer story, but I had to include the very good Rotes Zwickl from Ottakringer, which I liked a lot as the house beer at the excellent restaurant Österreicher im MAK (whose taps are pictured above). In the story, I wrote that this is one of the few beers in Vienna to come close to the nearly extinct Vienna lager style. Before any BJCP-style-guidelines-citing readers comment that a red Zwickl isn’t anything like Vienna lager, I’ll quickly link to Conrad Seidl’s piece on a real Vienna lager from Brauerei Villach, in which he writes (my translation):

“…but in Vienna, the local beer style was no more. Of Austrian beers, Hadmar (Bierwerkstatt Weitra) and the Rotes Zwickl from Ottakringer came the closest.”

What is interesting about the Vienna lager style is that, after it died out at home, related beers continued to exist in a couple of places: Mexico, for one, and in the Czech lands. (As Ron Pattinson wrote, “Vienna lagers aren’t dead: they’ve just moved over the border.”) In fact, this is one of the four current Czech beer trends I mentioned in The Truth about Budvar and in a post on Prague’s newest brewpub, Bašta.

Nope, those beers aren’t dead. They’re absolutely thriving here.

However, just as Hans and Franz go by Honza and František hereabouts, Vienna lager seems to change its name once it crosses the border: instead of Wiener Lager or even vídeňský ležák, our versions are called jantar (amber), polotmavý (half-dark) or granát (garnet). Often brewed from 11°–14° or higher, they are clear, light amber to deep amber in color, characterized by a fairly rich body with toasty malt, caramel, toffee and even syrupy notes followed by a lasting sweet finish without much hoppiness, unlike the bitter bite of a real Czech Pilsner-style beer.

Ottakringer’s Rotes Zwickl seemed a bit lighter in color than its Czech cousins, and the unfiltered Zwickl cloudiness made it stand out. But other than a slight yeastiness, the overall flavor was fairly similar, perhaps finishing with a bit less malt, though still pretty good.

Beyond Rotes Zwickl, I enjoyed Vienna immensely: the people were surprisingly friendly for a big city, the vast art collections can practically cause hallucinations (the good kind), and Viennese cuisine is like the best meal cooked by the Czech grandmother you never had. (Much like Franz and František, the Beuscherl from the story can be found as Pajšl in the Czech lands.) I was highly impressed by the restaurants in the article, all of which seemed to be run by people who care deeply about food and where it comes from.

Of course, Vienna is historically more into wine and coffee than beer, and the fine-dining angle on this story meant I wouldn’t get to spend too much time in the pub. Nonetheless, I did find some very good half-liters at Universitätsbräu, also known as Unibräu, a brewpub on the university campus with a refreshing (and pale, in the typical Austrian style) Märzen. And one rainy night when we were off restaurant duty, Nina and I visited Sieben-Stern-Bräu, which makes a properly smoky Bamberger Rauchbier (as well as a pretty decent plate of chili con carne, at least by Central European standards — you’re supposed to cook the beans, people). Seven Stars also serve an amber Märzen that they say is akin to a Vienna lager, though what I found most interesting was the dark beer they called Prager Dunkles, in homage to what was once Prague’s favorite pivo.

Nowadays, of course, many pubs and restaurants in Prague serve only Pilsner-style brews, with rich dark lagers often quite hard to find outside of brewpubs. In fact, Prague-style dark beer makes a weird parallel to Vienna lager: a beer that was once closely associated with the Czech capital has now largely disappeared.

But that’s a different story. As for Vienna lager and Czech amber and half-dark beers, I’ll have more to write soon. In the meantime, don’t miss Österreicher im MAK on your next trip to Vienna — and don’t skip the Beuscherl.

Just a quick post on the wonderful city-owned Pivovar Primátor, which I mentioned a couple of days ago in my contrarian take on Budvar as a good example of an innovative brewery outside the private sector. Last night Primátor held a tasting at Prague’s Pivovarský klub, showing off its full line of beers (pictured above with deservedly happy brewmaster Pavel Kořínek). Although all the beers were worth trying before, last night at least a couple gave the impression of having improved considerably.

To start, Primátor’s excellent 13° polotmavý (5.5% ABV) seemed much sweeter and more richly caramel-flavored than I remembered, well-worth its award for SPP’s semi-dark beer of the year for 2006.

And Primátor’s unusual strong lager, the 24° Double (10.5% ABV), seemed to have a fuller, stickier mouthfeel than before, followed by more lush notes of maple syrup, toasty malt and with a bright, peppermint-like hoppy spike in the finish. This is a deep amber lager, brewed from a mix of Bavarian and caramel malt and a small wheat adjunct, and it’s recommended as much as an ingredient in the kitchen as a beverage on the table. (A slice of bůček, or pork belly, glazed with 24° Double could be an absolute dream.) I’m not sure I prefer it to Březňák’s Doppel-Doppel-Bock, but it’s close.

As he introduced the beers, Mr. Kořínek explained a bit more about the offerings from the brewery.

There is also a small wheat adjunct in Primátor’s unusual 12° English Pale Ale (5% ABV), he said, noting that the brewery gets its ale yeast from Scotland and the Challenger and Goldings hops from England. Importing hops is rather unusual for Czech brewers, surrounded as they are by the best of Saaz, aka Žatec, but Saaz wouldn’t work in this style. It’s worth noting that the English Pale Ale is dry-hopped, as is the new extra-chmelené pivo (extra-hopped beer) from not-so-far-away Pivovar Broumov, also known as Opat.

All in all, Primátor’s beer-and-pony show was impressive. In terms of getting their marketing together, the brewery has a new line of easier-to-read labels. Alan McLeod wrote a great piece about beer labels at A Good Beer Blog yesterday, and it’s something that far too few brewers here think about. (At a tasting of beers from Pivovar Strakonice two months ago, I pointed out that one of their beers didn’t even say “Strakonice” on the front. How on earth are you supposed to inspire brand loyalty if your customers don’t know what brand it is they’re buying? Could you make this any harder for us?)

Since it is 100% owned by the city of Náchod, Primátor annually contributes some 200,000–300,000 Kč (7,700–11,500 euros) to the municipal coffers — not bad at all in terms of creating goodwill. The appreciation was clearly evident at the tasting: most beer presentations do not include spontaneous outbursts of applause, but this one did.

As for further innovation, I asked if Primátor would consider making a lehké pivo (literally “light beer,” brewed at 7° or less and finishing with less than 130 kJ per 100 milliliters, an older style of table beer even more subdued than Lew Bryson’s session beer project). The brewery’s management wouldn’t say yes or no, but they did note that Primátor should announce a new product line sometime this spring. For Czech beer fans, this could be an early Christmas.

The great British beer writer Roger Protz has posted an update on the situation at Budvar on his blog. This echoes the news about Budvar that was posted here, but with more insight and opinion. Please read it. Now.

To me, Roger’s post shows Budvar’s firm place in the heart of beer fans outside of the Czech Republic, probably due to the easy-to-recognize David vs. Goliath story line in Budvar’s fight with America’s Anheuser-Busch over the name Budweiser. I do think that foreign beer lovers’ emotional attachment to Budvar sometimes tends to cloud their our judgment: it’s as if we are certain Anheuser-Busch is pure evil, therefore Budvar, as its opponent, must be perfectly righteous. Of course, this line of thinking would make sense only in a comic book — in real life, situations are generally more nuanced.

Roger’s been a great help to me personally, and I do agree with his basic premise. But assuming you’ve read the post, I’ll pick a few bones with it in order to present what I think is the truth about Budvar as it appears on the ground here in its home country.

Let’s start with the second paragraph:

Budvar’s success is all the more remarkable when you consider that the Czech beer market is dominated by two global giants. SABMiller, which owns Pilsner Urquell and Gambrinus, and InBev, the world’s biggest brewing group, which owns Prague Breweries, have invested massively in their brands.

It’s true that SABMiller and InBev are the two largest brewing groups in the Czech lands, but what Roger doesn’t mention is that, at least for now, Budvar is the third largest brewer in the country and growing, a full order of magnitude larger in annual production (at 1.2 million hectoliters) than a beloved independent like Bernard (156,000 hectoliters). In fact, Budvar is relatively close to InBev’s Staropramen (about 3 million hectoliters), and thus has economies of scale that small Czech brewers could only dream of.

In other words, in terms of production, Budvar is hardly getting man-handled by the “big guys.” For the real independents here, Budvar is a big guy.

To continue:

They [SABMiller and InBev] have built branded pubs and restaurants,

Yes, they have, creating the Pilsner Urquell Original Restaurants and Staropramen’s Potrefená husa franchise. But Budvar has done the same, however slowly (more on this later), launching its own line of Budvarka pubs.

and [SABMiller and InBev] have discounted their beers heavily.

This would be surprising news to anyone who lives here, as Pilsner Urquell remains the most expensive standard golden lager in the country, with Staropramen not far behind. Just about every January, Pilsner Urquell announces its latest price increase, with the InBev breweries and others then following suit. (This happens so regularly that it feels like the arrival of some weird annual holiday: Yay! It’s Pilsner Urquell Price Increase Day!)

As my colleague Max Bahnson pointed out on his excellent Pivní Filosof blog, a keg of SABMiller’s lowbrow Gambrinus is more expensive here than a keg of premium lager from a great small brewery like Klášter. Pilsner Urquell is, of course, even more expensive. You can check out wholesale prices for Czech beers at JiMi and see that Pilsner Urquell and Staropramen světlý ležák are the two most expensive 50-liter kegs on the list. How exactly are SABMiller and InBev discounting their beers by charging more?

For from being hidebound or conservative — the usual charges made against nationalised companies — it has been innovative and has introduced new brands, including the acclaimed Budvar Dark.

To be honest, Budvar practically defines hidebound and conservative, at least in Czech terms. It was extremely slow to move forward with its Budvarka pubs while Pilsner Urquell and Staropramen pushed hard in this direction. And the introduction of a dark lager can hardly count as cutting-edge: 95% of Czech consumption is Pilsner-style golden lager, while the remainder is dark lager. Coming up with a version of your country’s second most-popular beer style after 110 years is far from groundbreaking.

In the Czech Republic, there are perhaps four current beer trends: well-made non-alcoholic beers; amber (aka polotmavý, or half-dark); strong dark lagers brewed at 18° or above; and the return of wheat beers. Budvar has introduced a great non-alcoholic, hitting one out of four, and several years back it came out with Bud Super Strong, a high-alcohol golden beer. Make of that what you will; I personally like it, though I should point out that Michael Jackson called it “not what Budvar should be doing” while he was in Prague. Currently, Budvar has no wheat beer, no amber beer and no strong dark lager.

Innovative? It may be a great, historic brewery, but it is far from an innovative one.

And year after year it tops the poll in the annual awards — chosen by beer lovers — in the competition organised by the newspaper Pivni Kuryr (Beer Courier).

For me, those awards would be much more convincing if the issue of Pivní kurýr announcing the prizes didn’t include a a full-page advertisement paid for by the winner.

Actually, I’m surprised that Roger, as a member of CAMRA, doesn’t mention the awards from SPP, the Czech beer consumer’s union which is CAMRA’s counterpart in the Czech lands. SPP produces, without doubt, the most reputable of all Czech beer awards (there are about a dozen other contests, many of which are highly questionable). As Max reports on the winners of the 2007 SPP awards (in Spanish and Czech, but you’ll figure it out), Budvar picked up just one silver medal last year: second place for dark beer of the year.

That is to say Budvar got nothing for 10° or 12° golden lager of the year. And nothing in the category of half-dark beer of the year — because remember, they don’t produce one.

As I wrote before on Beer Culture and elsewhere, I think the sale of Budvar would be an unpopular political move here: most Czechs I know are proud of the brewery, and they’re glad they still own it. However, that doesn’t mean Budvar is the country’s favorite beer. The empirical evidence: repeated surveys reported by ČTK, the Czech news agency, say that Pilsner Urquell is widely considered the beer with the highest overall quality.

The allegorical evidence: I’ve spent Christmas with three Czech families over the past nine years, and last year’s dinner at my future in-laws’ was identical to all of the preceding meals. Although my fiancée’s family comes from Southern Bohemia — the same region as České Budějovice, Budvar’s home — most of the year they drink Platan, their local, independent brew. Christmas, however, is a special occasion, so they put out Pilsner Urquell.

Don’t take this the wrong way: I love Budvar. I’m rooting for Budvar. But it would just be easier to root for them if they would respond to the growing interest on the ground here and brew an amber lager, a wheat beer, a strong dark, or all of the above. And it would be even easier to be on their side if they didn’t pull stupid moves like the ridiculous marketing stunt in late 2004 by which CAMRA members denounced Pilsner Urquell, a move which completely backfired, incensing many local beer fans toward both CAMRA and Budvar. It was a nice little firestorm with underlying overtones of cultural imperialism, and as I wrote at the time, many people here were certain “that the comments of CAMRA were part of a marketing ploy by the rivals of Pilsner Urquell,” meaning the state-owned one. If you were at the meeting in Prague when the group of Czech beer lovers told the Budvar marketing representative exactly what they thought of this ploy, you’d know that not everyone here approves of the way the nation’s third-largest brewery has operated.

To be clear, I do agree with Roger’s basic premise: state-owned breweries can compete successfully with the private sector. He’s absolutely right. I just don’t think that, in Czech terms, Budvar is the best example of this. I’d rather point to a brewery like Primátor, which is gaining ground across the Czech Republic with its excellent wheat beer, its new English Pale Ale, as well as its outstanding new amber and its noteworthy line of strong lagers brewed at 16°, 21° and 24°.

With a list like that, Primátor is among the most innovative breweries in the country, and it doesn’t hurt to know that the profits go to its owner, the eastern Bohemian city of Náchod, paying for schools and roads and parks and more. In terms of innovation, responding to consumer interest, and creating goodwill, Budvar could take a lesson.

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.