My first lager was Pilsner Urquell, on tap at the Postgraduate Club at Queens University. It spoiled me for lager entirely for years and years, and I drink it very, very rarely, although you can sometimes get Pilsner Urquell again in London now.
I do look forward to a beer crawl with you in Brno one of these forthcoming post-child years...
We haven't been doing much with either pubs or travel in the last fifteen years, for obvious reasons, and although we'll do more in the next three or four years, it probably won't be that much more.
Genuine Pilsner Urquell is fairly widely available on draught in London now, with several pubs even serving it Czech-style from tanks. The Euston Tap has Bernard fairly often I think.
Staropramen was imported in tankers for a while some decades ago when Bass bought Prague Breweries. More recently it's been owned by AB-InBev but distributed by Carlsberg. Molson-Coors bought it a couple of years ago though, and has just taken distribution back in house, I've no idea whether it'll be tanked, kegged or what.
Some of the new-wave craft breweries in London produce quite decent lagers now, as well.
It's odd how lifeless the Czech beer I've had abroad is.
I think it is at least partly pasteurization, filtration, bottling etc. By the same token, the rare British beer here is fairly bad -- cold, fizzy, lifeless and generally crap.
Take a good beer, prepare it for shipping a megameter or 2 by killing it and filtering the life out of it, then serve it badly and the result will only be good if the original beer was /startling/ in its depth of character.
British real ale doesn't ship well -- it's a living thing. Drinking its spavined corpse is seldom rewarding. It's passable if it's something strong, rich, bold and designed to be bottled.
Genuine Czech lager is a much subtler style of beer. The bottled versions are dull even here. I think it doesn't travel well, and the exported style is bland and soulless.
I was in Prague briefly about seventeen or eighteen years ago, and I remember the bogstandard local lager as being really rather decent, in spite of not really being a lager drinker. Perhaps I wasn't deluding myself after all.
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I do look forward to a beer crawl with you in Brno one of these forthcoming post-child years...
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In London, Pilsner Urquell isn't uncommon in bottles, Budvar and occasionally Staropramen or Bernard on draught.
And yes, you'd be very welcome. Total tally of visitors in 14 months: 3.
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We haven't been doing much with either pubs or travel in the last fifteen years, for obvious reasons, and although we'll do more in the next three or four years, it probably won't be that much more.
When we retire though...
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Staropramen was imported in tankers for a while some decades ago when Bass bought Prague Breweries. More recently it's been owned by AB-InBev but distributed by Carlsberg. Molson-Coors bought it a couple of years ago though, and has just taken distribution back in house, I've no idea whether it'll be tanked, kegged or what.
Some of the new-wave craft breweries in London produce quite decent lagers now, as well.
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It's odd how lifeless the Czech beer I've had abroad is.
I think it is at least partly pasteurization, filtration, bottling
etc. By the same token, the rare British beer here is fairly bad --
cold, fizzy, lifeless and generally crap.
Take a good beer, prepare it for shipping a megameter or 2 by killing
it and filtering the life out of it, then serve it badly and the
result will only be good if the original beer was /startling/ in its
depth of character.
British real ale doesn't ship well -- it's a living thing. Drinking
its spavined corpse is seldom rewarding. It's passable if it's
something strong, rich, bold and designed to be bottled.
Genuine Czech lager is a much subtler style of beer. The bottled
versions are dull even here. I think it doesn't travel well, and the
exported style is bland and soulless.
Reply
All these beers can be good in bottles, but only if carefully stored, and preferably drunk reasonably fresh.
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Yesterday after the Beeblebears picnic I was drinking Camden Black Friday, a black pilsner with smokey tones. There's a lot of nice stuff about.
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