Call it an auspicious start to 2009 for lovers of good beer: in the very center of Prague, a major Czech supermarket now has a large selection of great Trappist ales at the best prices in town.

Most of these beers are available elsewhere in Prague, so don’t expect to find any unknown gems among the supermarket’s Budvar and Pilsner Urquell bottles. As I wrote in a post that was lost in the Wormhole Incident™, you can find well-known Belgians at Pivovarský klub and Pivní galerie, though you’ll burn through your pocketbook if you do, as prices for a small bottle of the globally ubiquitous Chimay can hit 153 Kč ($7.90 / €5.70).

In my earlier post, I forwarded a friend’s recommendation for the cheese shop Cheesy, with branches around Prague and around the country, and where most of the Trappist ales list for 75 Kč or so per 33-centiliter bottle. (An exception was the legendary Rochefort 10, which cost 90 Kč.)

But the prices at the Billa supermarket are even better, and with a more central location. Right at Náměstí Republiky, the Billa on V celnici street charges 63 Kč ($3.25 / €2.35) for a small bottle of Orval, the best price I’ve heard of for what can be one of the very best beers in the world.

Rochefort 6 and 8 are also 63 Kč; Rochefort 10 is 80 Kč. Small bottles of La Trappe and Westmalle start at 60 Kč. Most of the fruit-lambic lineup from Lindemans is available at similar prices (although I didn’t see Cuvée René, the brewery’s better old gueuze).

The best news, however, is that Billa also carries the large, .75-liter bottles which are perfect for aging. Corked-and-caged wine bottles of Chimay Cinq Cents, Grande Réserve and Première are all just 160 Kč; the wonderfully complex Achel Extra Bruin boasting 9.5% alcohol is just 200 Kč; big bottles of Westmalle Tripel are 180 Kč.

Why does this matter? Because Czech beer culture’s tough bounce is the extremely high price of foreign beers: even at 63 Kč for an Orval, you’re paying three times the cost of a Pilsner Urquell or Primátor Stout. Such prices mean foreign brews remain out of bounds for most people, which in turn means that regular Honzas and Hankas here have no experience with even the most mundane beer styles from abroad. (Let’s be honest: we’re not talking about truly obscure beers here. These are Belgium’s usual suspects.) In turn, this means that people continue to drink one style of beer, pale lager, which constitutes 95% of Czech consumption. In general, such homogeneity is not a hallmark of a healthy beer culture.

But beyond merely having lower prices, the arrival of Belgium’s usual suspects at Billa means something is changing. Before, these beers were only available in a couple of beer shops in town. Later, you could find them in a few specialty food stores. Now, in addition to lower prices, we’re seeing the progress to mass distribution of quality foreign beers in a place where thousands of Praguers buy their daily groceries.

Instead of Belgium’s best-known brews, I’m sure that Velký Al would prefer to see more real ale from the UK. I’d bet that Pivní Filosof would rather see more Czech regional microbrews. And I’d agree with both of them. But one thing at a time. 2009 is already off to a very good start.

Radio Prague has a piece on a story that made headlines here this week: Pilsner Urquell is now cheaper in Germany than in the Czech Republic. I performed the role of the talking head in the story, a complicated mess of pricing, market share and currency fluctuations which ultimately boils down to the following:

Pilsner Urquell is now cheaper in Germany than in the Czech Republic.

Not everything I said made it into the web version, and there were quite a few things I didn’t get to mention before the interview ended. One part that got cut off from my take on the German appreciation for Pilsner Urquell was the fact that German Pilsner-style beers use a place name as an adjective in connection with the word, such as “Bamberger Pilsner,” in homage and in deference to the original.

However, I did get to mention something that has been bugging me for a while: Heineken is being promoted in the Czech Republic at the expense of quality local beers.

Recently my neighborhood supermarket was selling a half-liter bottle of Heineken “Pilsner” for 19 Kč, then about 72 cents in euro terms, about what it might cost in a supermarket in Amsterdam (now more, due to the recent strengthening of the Czech crown against the euro). This is not what anyone would possibly consider a fair trade: Pilsner Urquell is more expensive at home than outside the country, and supermarkets here compensate by offering us Heineken? (Edit: more to the point, this particular supermarket doesn’t stock any beers from small brewers like Primátor, Svijany, Opat, Herold, Černá Hora, Platan, Rebel, Louny, Velké Březno or Rychtář. From Klášter, it only stocks the 11° světlý ležák; from Bernard it only stocks the sváteční ležák. Everything else is a mass-production brew like Heineken.)

It’s hardly coincidental that the supermarket chain in question, Albert, is part of Ahold. Ahold is based in Rotterdam, while Heineken is based in Amsterdam. From the outside, this appears to be a case of “o nás bez nás,” or “about us without us” — in other words, decisions affecting consumer choice in the Czech Republic seem to be made in far-away countries without regard for local tastes, history and traditions.

It’s enough to make you want to write a letter to Ahold Czech Republic, saying “Please improve your beer selection at Albert. We don’t want Heineken. We are in the Czech Republic. We want to buy a variety of quality Czech beers, including beers from small producers like Primátor, Svijany, Herold or Opat.”

Or:

“Prosím zlepšete svou pivní nabídku v Albertu. Nechceme Heineken. Jsme v České Republice. Chceme mít možnost nakupovat různá kvalitní česká piva, včetně piva od malých výrobců jako jsou Primátor, Svijany, Herold nebo Opat.”

Feel free to copy and paste. And if you have the time to print that up and stick it in an envelope, the mailing address is:

Ahold Czech Republic
David Šátek, Purchasing Department
Radlická 117
158 00 Praha 5 — Nové Butovice
Czech Republic

In any case, Czech beer prices are all going up, as I mentioned last week, meaning we’ll have to get used to paying more for everything, not just Pilsner Urquell. The photo at the top of this page was taken in July of 2006, when you could still buy a half-liter of the original Pilsner in Prague for 23 Kč. Heineken may be many things, but it is no substitute for a great beer from a small Czech producer.

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.

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.

Okay, I goofed. As part of the first post of Beer Culture, I promised a review of the Christmas beer at Prague’s Klášterní pivovar Strahov (Strahov Monastery Brewery). By the time I got up there last week, it was gone, completely sold out and no longer available. Promiňte! I’ve tried this beer several times over the past few years and it’s always seemed to last longer than this — and it’s always been worth the trip. But, due to the typical holiday rush, the 2007 version escaped me. Give me another eleven months and I’ll make it up to you.

As an alternative, here’s a tasting report on two other special beers from Strahov, both of which I tried recently from bottles.

Sv. Norbert Podzimní Tmavé / Autumn Dark 16° (pictured above). From the label: “An all-malt, bottom-fermented beer brewed from the fresh harvest of hops.” This is a clear, very dark amber brewed at 16°, or 1.065, and ending up with 6.3% ABV. It’s topped with a loose, sandy-colored head that doesn’t stick around for too long. The fruity, aromatic nose hints of raspberries and hashish. It has a lush mouthfeel and a full, bittersweet malt rush in the mouth, followed by a lasting, toasty finish. This beer has less coffee flavors than most Czech darks, and additional sips uncover rich licorice and cola notes. Outstanding.

Sv. Norbert Pšeničné / Weizen 13°. This wheat beer pours a cloudy deep gold with a thick, creamy white head. From the bottle, it appears less fizzy than the version on tap. The bouquet has a mysteriously spicy, almost animal scent. In the mouth it has a rich, honey-scented malt-wheat body and minimal citrus flavors which finish with a peppery clove note. Arguably the best wheat beer in the country. I believe it has benefited substantially from bottle-conditioning, and I would prefer this version to the one on draft.

It’s interesting to note that there is only one rating for the Autumn Dark at Ratebeer, and only four ratings exist for the wheat beer, though the brewery’s standard amber special is ranked as the second-best beer in the country (coming only after the unfiltered Pilsner Urquell served at the end of the brewery tour). When I went to Strahov, there was another less-common beer on tap, the Sv. Norbert Světlé 12°, a classic golden lager with a bitter hop finish that I enjoyed immensely.

There are only two caveats to visiting Strahov, both of which stem from the same root problem, that the clientele is largely composed of foreign tourists, often in large, noisy groups. First of all, this means that service can be indifferent at best and even quite unfriendly, in the case of at least one waiter in the brewpub restaurant. Second, as I mentioned in the guidebook, the price-portion ratio is also geared towards tourists, with a smallish .4-liter glass of draft beer costing 59 Kč (at current rates, $3.30 / £1.70 / €2.27), and a .5-liter bottle of Weizen, the only bottle they had available on my most recent visit, priced at 100 Kč.

By local standards, that’s very expensive beer. As I wrote earlier, a .5-liter glass (or půllitr, the standard serving) of great polotmavé pivo costs 25 Kč at Prague’s newest brewpub, Pivovar Bašta. A half-liter of good Budvar, Bernard or Svijany can also be as cheap as 25 Kč in the center of Prague, and much less in the outskirts. But the Strahov beers certainly offer something more than your average pint of lager, and only you can decide if the pivo is worth the price.