On Friday, the Czech Beer Festival kicked off at Letňany exhibition grounds (last year’s version is pictured above). It’s fair to say that there was some chaos at the opening: when Velký Al from Fuggled and I arrived a half hour after things got started at 3 p.m., there was only one beer available on tap. Tent #6, which was supposed to have Kout and other indies, had nothing going. Nor did any other tent besides #3. It sounds impossible: at a beer festival, beer fans were going thirsty.

But within an hour or so, the situation righted itself. Several great beers from Náchod’s Pivovar Primátor started flowing, including the brewery’s new 11° pale lager. Within a short while we were even sampling Kout na Šumavě 10°, a desítka with as much character as most 12° beers in these parts.

It’s very different from last year’s festival in that there is no entry fee. Most beers are 40 crowns, though this year the strong beers, like Jihlava’s 18° Jihlavský Grand, are served in .3-liter glasses, which makes far more sense than serving them by the pint. You definitely should check it out before the festival closes on May 31.

But there’s more.

Soon after we got to Letňany, Velký Al and I were joined by Max Bahnson of Pivní Filosof. He had just come from the concurrent festival at Zlý Časy, an all-micro running over the same days, including beers from the new brewery at Broumy (more on this soon) and the return of Rampušák, a brewery closed since before the publication of Good Beer Guide Prague and the Czech Republic and only recently returned to production. Zlý Časy’s festival theme is 30 micros in 10 days, making just about every beer an interesting one, and most kegs are one-offs, so when they run out, they’re gone. Go.

In other news, next month’s big event is the wheat beer tasting at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. In the same vein as last year’s outstanding Christmas Beer Markets, Pivovar Kocour Varnsdorf owner and Czech beer juggernaut Honza Kočka will present a tasting of various wheat beers, including Leipziger Gose and the return of Herold’s Bohemian Wheat. The cost is 150 Kč for each four-hour session. The dates and sessions are as follows: Friday, 12 June, 6-10 p.m.; Saturday, 13 June, 1-5 p.m.; Saturday, 13 June, 6-10 p.m.; and Sunday, 14 June, from 3-7 p.m.

And finally, I’ve agreed to host another beer tasting and dinner at the Mandarin Oriental on Thursday, 26 June, in the wine cellar of the hotel’s Essensia restaurant. The program for this tasting isn’t completely set, but earlier tastings have covered new Czech beers and focused on raw materials. Suffice it to say we will have great food and outstanding Czech brews on hand. For reservations and more information: tel. +420 233 088 612, or via email at moprg-pr@mohg.com.

You hit the road for a few days of peace and solitude in South Bohemia and what happens? A great beer that has been AWOL for years suddenly returns to the scene.

The brew in question is the very nice wheat beer from Pivovar Herold, a brewery I pass each time I drive down to my wife’s family’s summer home in Písek. As I’ve mentioned before, the history of the brewery in the town of Březnice is covered in Ludvík Fürst’s monograph “Jak se u nás vařilo pivo” (or “How we used to brew beer”). In that book, Fürst quotes documents mentioning the production of wheat beer at Březnice in the sixteenth century. When Herold reintroduced its modern wheat beers in 2002, they were the only Czech wheat beers available in bottles at the time.

That seemed to set off a small wheat trend here. Today, of course, we’ve got the nicely clove-scented Weizenbier from Pivovar Primátor, which is available in Tesco and other big supermarkets around the country. Many brewpubs have started brewing their own wheats; the Duchmaus wheat beer from Pivovar U Rybiček is even distributed in plastic bottles, a new development for many small Czech brewers. And yet as far as I can tell, Herold — one of the first Czech producers to make a name with wheat beers in the recent era — stopped brewing its own wheat by 2007.

Then came last summer’s change of ownership. While the brewery’s black lager remained strong enough to inspire imitations abroad, there were whispers that the new owners might make some changes, including the reintroduction of the wheat. And then, just in time for summer, a shipment of Herold’s wheat beer was delivered to Pivovarský klub in Prague on Thursday, May 14.

There’s something interesting on the label: in English, Herold identifies this beer as “wheat lager,” which seems to present a contradiction. As many beer fans know, “lager” is often used as a term for bottom-fermented beers, while wheat beers are mostly top-fermenting. However, that doesn’t mean that this is a wheat-lager hybrid; as I understand it, this beer is still made using traditional top-fermenting wheat beer yeast. Instead, the term on the label is an English-language approximation of the Czech brewing term “ležák,” which refers to the relative strength of the beer, covering those beers produced at 11° and 12° Plato or Balling. (The term “výčepní,” literally meaning something like “tap” or “taproom,” covers beers brewed at 9° and 10°, even those which are not served on tap or in taprooms.)

So how does Herold’s “wheat lager” taste?

Good. It pours a very pretty, cloudy gold with a fluffy white head. There’s not nearly as much clove in the nose as in other beers; instead, I thought I noted tobacco before I detected a bit of clove on the palate as well as some pronounced barley malt flavors. Perhaps it’s the “wheat lager” on the label, but I thought it was a very Pilsner-like Weizen, reminding me of Weltenburger’s Hefe-Weißbier Hell in its citrus notes. It has a very light body and is very easy to drink.

The next time you drive by Březnice, you have a very good reason to stop and pick up a case. And while Primátor’s Weizenbier has had a near-constant presence on Pivovarský klub’s tap #6, that should change in the near future: the delivery last Thursday included bottles as well as several kegs, meaning you’ll be able to try Herold’s wheat beer on draft at Pivovarský klub for a good while to come.

On Wednesday, November 19, the Sdružení přátel piva held its annual awards ceremony for the greatest beers, breweries, and the best brewmaster in the Czech Republic.

Often rendered in English as the Union of Friends of Beer, the SPP is the Czech beer consumers’ organization, a counterpart to the Campaign for Real Ale and other fellow members of the European Beer Consumers Union, similarly working to promote quality beer and preserve local beer traditions. Though there are many beer awards in the lager-loving Czech Republic, the SPP awards are among the most prestigious and most anticipated such ceremonies on the Czech beer calendar.

The awards, handed out this year inside the cozy beer hall on the Budweiser Budvar brewery grounds, went to the following:

For 10° (desítka) beer of the year — a category of beers of moderate alcohol and the most commonly consumed type of beer in the country — the winners were:

First Place: Moravské Sklepní nefiltrované from Černá Hora
Second place: Pardál světlé výčepní pivo from Budvar
Third place: Budweiser Budvar světlé výčepní pivo

For 11° (jedenáctka) beer of the year — a category of medium body and alcohol — the winners were:

First Place: Ležák 11° from Pivovar Klášter
Second place: Otakar ležák from Polička
Third place: Svijanský Maz from Svijany

For 12° (dvanáctka) beer of the year — premium lagers of the classic “Bohemian Pilsner” style — the winners were:

First Place: Sváteční ležák from Bernard
Second place: Pilsner Urquell
Third place: Opat from Pivovar Broumov

For Speziál of the year — a category of higher-gravity special lagers — the winners were:

First Place: Primátor Exklusiv 16° from Pivovar Náchod
Second place: Kvasar from Černá Hora
Third place: Démon from Lobkowicz

For dark beer of the year:

First Place: Budweiser Budvar tmavý ležák
Second place: Speciální černé pivo from Bernard
Third place: Svijanská Kněžna from Svijany

For polotmavý pivo of the year — half-dark and amber lagers — the winners were:

First Place: Skalák from Rohozec
Second place: Primátor Pale Ale from Pivovar Náchod
Third place: Primátor polotmavé 13° from Pivovar Náchod

For non-alcoholic beer of the year — a growth category in the Czech lands — the winners were:

First Place: Bernard Free Jantar (amber)
Second place: Bernard Free (pale)
Third place: Svijanská Vozka from Svijany

For minipivovar of the year — “mini brewery,” aka “brewpub” — the winners were:

First Place: Prague’s Klášterní Pivovar Strahov
Second place: Pivovarský dvůr Chýně
Third place: Malostranský pivovar in Velké Meziříčí

For brewery of the year:

First Place: Svijany
Second place: Budweiser Budvar
Third place: Pivovar Náchod (Primátor)

For sládek roku, brewmaster of the year:

Ing. Josef Tolar from Budweiser Budvar

In addition to the awards, there were plenty of great brews on hand. Klášterní Pivovar Strahov brought its wonderful Autumn Dark, made with this year’s fresh Saaz hop harvest, which tasted even better — with much more hop bite in the finish — than last year’s version; the brewery’s excellent wheat beer provided a nice light counterpoint. Both the 11° and 12° pale lagers from Pivovar Polička were on draft, as was just about everything from Budweiser Budvar; the only Budvar beer I didn’t see there was the oft-maligned Bud Super Strong.

After the awards ceremony, the attendees went on a tour of the Budweiser Budvar brewery led by brewmaster Josef Tolar himself. I’ve been on the public tour at Budvar before, but this was the first time I saw so much behind the scenes and got to ask so many questions. (Q: What hops are used in the new love-it-or-hate-it Pardál? A: 100% Czech hops of the Angus variety, due to its higher alpha-acid content than the traditional Saaz hops used in Budvar. Q: When did Budvar complete its switch from open fermenters to cyclindro-conical tanks? A: 1996.)

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stop in Budvar’s chmelárna, or hop room, which was a bit of a disappointment: Garrett Oliver once described the intensity of the hop aroma getting stronger and stronger as you take the slow freight elevator down into the chmelárna, and how the scent of all those hops — Budvar uses only whole Saaz hop flowers, no pellets or extracts — is nearly overwhelming once you’re actually in the room.

It was a great day out. Members of the Polish Bractwo Piwne, another European Beer Consumers Union member group, were also in attendance, as was Toshi Ishii, brewmaster from Japan’s Yo-Ho Brewing Co. I asked Miroslav Šmejda of Primátor about the brewery’s new stout, who said to look for it in Prague at Kaufland stores sometimes next month. Everyone seemed to have a great time: winners, losers, and especially lovers of great Czech beer.

And then, just a few minutes before we were supposed to take the bus back to Prague, Zbyněk Holan and Tomáš Maier from SPP told me to come with them. As the party continued, Mr. Tolar broke away from the celebrations and led us back across the darkened brewery grounds. He made a quick call on his mobile. A moment later, a Budvar employee arrived, opening the doors to the freight elevator for the hop room.

For years, the most innovative Czech brewery has been Pivovar Primátor, currently the property of the city of Náchod, which earned its title by putting out three very good strong lagers and one of the first widely distributed Hefeweizens, followed by a decent take on a pale ale. Though the newer (and much smaller) Pivovar Kocour is trying even more new things, Primátor still puts out the most interesting beers in Prague supermarkets. And as of last month, the Náchod city beer maker is offering a further innovation: the country’s first real stout.

To skip to the chase: it’s excellent. And when you consider that East Bohemia is fairly removed from the traditional sources of stout in London and Dublin, you’d have to call it outstanding.

The beer departs from Czech tradition in several ways: while virtually all Czech beers are produced using a decoction mash — a complicated process requiring the separation and heating of part of the beer’s initial “grain soup” to higher temperatures — Primátor stout is made using a simpler infusion mash, roughly like the way you brew tea.

The ingredients include four kinds of barley malt — Pilsner, Bavarian and caramel malt with just a touch of smoked malt — as well as roasted unmalted barley, unmalted oats and unspecified British hops. British hops are weird enough in the homeland of Saaz, but when you combine it with a grain bill that includes unmalted barley, oats and Bamberg-style smoked malt in a not-so-Czech infusion mash and you’ve got something fairly weird indeed. We’re through the looking glass, people.

After trying it several times recently, both on tap and in bottles, I can say I’ve found it quite impressive, with one caveat, which I’ll discuss later.

The beer pours a very dark amber, almost black, with a creamy tan head, and is quite similar in appearance to bottled Guinness Extra Stout, to which I compared it on my last tasting. The aroma smells strongly of cocoa dust and carob. In the mouth there is a rush of toasty malt, a touch of oat porridge, some bitter chocolate, more cocoa and carob, with a light note of good arabica coffee in the finish, followed by a lingering, slight smokiness with a touch of astringency for balance.

The coffee note is subtle but clear. In fact, on tap at U Radnice recently the beer was listed as “Stout – kávové” or “Stout – Coffee [beer],” and the waitress wouldn’t hear of it not actually including being made with coffee. “It is coffee beer,” she said, and at least in terms of how it tastes, she’s right.

The Guinness, by comparison, is far less complex — there’s no cocoa, no carob notes, and the coffee flavor is bitter and sharp like an overbrewed robusta. Sampling the last flat drops at the bottom of the bottle, it came off saccharine like a cheap cola.

Overall, Primátor stout is an excellent beer on its own terms, and a very agreeable stout in global terms. In comparison to quality stouts from elsewhere, however, I thought I detected one slight difference: the Primátor stout’s lack of stoutness. That is to say that the flavors of Primátor stout are all there, but the mouthfeel — the texture, viscosity, heft and fullness of the beer — is thinner than that of many stouts I’ve enjoyed. That’s an observation, not a criticism, and I wouldn’t ask for it to change.

However, it’s worth noting that it is also the mouthfeel of Primátor’s English Pale Ale which seems most unlike the beers it is trying to emulate. Perhaps the difference arrives through the use of undermodified Czech malts in the mash, as opposed to well-modified English malts in the originals. Or perhaps it is due to the difference in Náchod’s water, which is likely to be lower in sulfates and carbonates than the water used in breweries that traditionally produce ales.

In any case, Primátor stout is an absolutely excellent new arrival. From outside the Czech Republic, it might sound crazy for us to be thrilled by such a conventional style as stout, especially when craft brewers in America, the UK, Denmark, Italy and elsewhere are creating new beer styles, experimenting with souring and over-hopping and innovations like oak-aging, new trends that don’t exist at all in the homeland of Pilsner brewing.

But perhaps they will soon.

In just nine days, the first annual Czech Beer Festival takes its shot at establishing a springtime Oktoberfest in Bohemia. Not only are the first advertisements starting to show up, but I’ve just received confirmation that the beer list has expanded well beyond Pilsner Urquell, Budvar and Staropramen. In fact, it seems a slew of smaller producers will be represented.

According to the organizers, the beers on tap now include 16 brands. First, the usual suspects:

• Budvar
• Pilsner Urquell (SABMiller)
• Kozel (SABMiller)
• Gambrinus (SABMiller)
• Radegast (SABMiller)
• Staropramen (InBev)
• Ostravar (InBev)
• Braník (InBev)

That leaves us with nine smaller producers, some of which are rather unusual picks. (As in there’s no Bernard.) Witness the fitness:

• Černá Hora
• Janáček
• Jihlava
• Platan
• Svijany
• Rohozec
• Konrad
• Rakovník

Not a bad selection. However, it does bring up a few questions:

Whatever happened to Primátor, which was supposed to be included when we first wrote about the Czech Beer Festival?

Does this mean that Primátor’s special beer for dogs is also off the table?

Where did Krušovice go — and why?

What beers from each brewery are going to be present? Will Janáček serve its Comenius? Will Jihlava offer Jihlavský Grand? Or will it all be 10° and 12° světlý ležák, the pale lagers that dominate 95% of all local consumption?

In other words, it’s a great thing that the Czech Beer Festival plans to offer sixteen beers, a few of which are rarely seen in Prague. But are all sixteen going to be more or less imitations of each other?

In nine days and about an hour and a half, we’ll all find out…

It’s the start of the travel season, and that means I’ve been on deadline for a handful of stories. Consequently, my thoughts are fairly well fragmented at this point. Here are some of the many beery notes that are bouncing around my cranium.

Yesterday I saw the first poster (at a bus stop) for the Czech Beer Festival. Considering the starting pistol is set to go off in just 10 days, you’d think there would be a wee bit more coverage — is the word getting out? Someone, at least, should follow-up on the fact that they told us they’re brewing and serving a beer for dogs.

I recently tried another Lučan Premium Tmavé, a once-great dark beer from Žatec, and found that it was nowhere near as dark — nor as flavorful — as it was in my earlier tasting notes. Max Bahnson came to a similar conclusion about the whole line of Žatec beers at Pivní filosof. It reminds me of how different beer (and beer writing) is from wine, given beer’s ephemeral nature: a great beer can become mediocre with the next batch, but a great wine often seems more permanent, or at least more permanently great, because everyone knows you’re talking about (at least if it were beer) the 2007 Lučan Premium Tmavé, not every Lučan beer ever made. This is different in the case of beers marked with a vintage, but how many of those are there, anyway?

I’m not sure if it had anything to do with our anti-Heineken email campaign (more on this later), but there’s clearly much less Heineken on display at my local Albert supermarket: it used to take up about a meter of shelf space, plus several grab-a-beer cases on the floor. Now it takes up half a meter of shelf space and that’s it. Did someone hear us?

In related news, I had a Starobrno Medium (owned by Heineken) yesterday and thought it was great. Not craft beer, but a good factory-made lager by any measure. So perhaps foreign ownership of local beers is not the end of the world — aside from the repatriation of profits, that is.

To judge by numerous recent tastings, Primátor’s Weizenbier is currently firing on all cylinders. Just in time for summer…

Among other assignments, I’m working on an article about Prague’s beer gardens, so I visited a small one nearby that is said to be an occasional haunt of Czech President Václav Klaus: Na krásné vyhlídce (Na Dlážděnce 35, Prague 8). Mr. Klaus wasn’t there, but just before I left First Lady Livia Klausová did stop by. The pub serves Pilsner Urquell and Gambrinus 10°, as well as Schöfferhofer pale and dark wheat beers, both of which were okay.

On that note, how hard would it be to get them to serve Primátor’s Weizenbier?

Even better, how can we get the Letná beer garden to serve it? More on this soon… I have a plan.

Pivovarský klub is holding the Days of Polish Beer starting on Tuesday 20 May with a tasting at — CORRECTION — 3 p.m., which lasts UNTIL 6 p.m., after which the four Polish brews will be on draft until they run out. If you want to attend the tasting, it’s 100 Kč for those who are not members of SPP or Pivoklub, and you’ll need to make a reservation at Tel. 222 315 777.

Budvar dark is a lovely beer. Herold dark is still my current favorite. But perhaps because I tasted that amazing 101 Oktan Imperial Stout in Stockholm, as well as the good Carnegie porter and Slottskällans Imperial Stout I brought home, I’m having trouble getting back into pale and golden lagers: it’s either wheat beers or darks at this point.

Thus I was very glad to read Pivní filosof’s take on Grado Plato’s Chocarrubica, a beer that deserves more attention. I’m working on my piece about Italy at the moment and I know I’m going to ask why this beer isn’t in more high-end restaurants, both in the kitchen and on the beverage list.

On that note, I had lunch recently at the Four Seasons’ Allegro restaurant, famous for earning the first Michelin star in all of post-communist Europe (take that, Moscow). Among many outstanding dishes, chef Andrea Accordi serves a rich trio of foie gras, prepared au torchon, “nature” with rhubarb, and as foie gras ice cream, cooked with Bernard dark beer and paired by the sommelier with Guinness Extra Stout. How many other high-end restaurants in Prague do anything of interest with beer?

One comes to mind: on Friday 16 May I’ll be giving a lengthy talk entitled “Czech Beer: Beyond Plzeň” at Essensia, the restaurant inside Prague’s Mandarin Oriental hotel. The talk will include tastings from some of the country’s best small producers, all focusing on beers that are not made in the Pilsner style, along with an array of Essentia’s excellent pan-Asian cuisine. For more information: Tel. +420 233 088 888.

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.

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.