OnTap Magazine

ontapmag.co.za | Spring 2024 | 43 My wife, Laura and I, mostly visited traditional Czech pubs, to experience the local hospitality and see how they serve and drink beer. As expected, the quality is excellent, but the variety of beer is not as good as in places like Belgium or the USA. Most pubs only served beer from one brewery, either Plzeňský Prazdroj (brewers of Pilsner Urquell and Velkopopovický Kozel Cerný dark beer), or Budvar. They generally had only a light (světlý) beer, which is a Czech Premium Pale Lager such as Pilsner Urquell, and one dark (tmavý) lager. The German influence is strong and most of the pubs look like typical German beer halls, with long tables where everyone sits beside each other. They also follow the Czech tradition, where a server places a slip of paper at your table and then writes both your food and beer order on it, adding a mark for each beer you order. At the end of the night, when you are ready to settle, the server just adds it up at the table. In many pubs the barman pays no attention to orders, continually pouring Pilsner Urquell knowing that it will be taken to the tables and consumed. Although it is a great beer, it does get monotonous after a while. They also like to serve it with a substantial head of foam, which was a little unusual to us. Traditional pub food is typical hearty central European fare with lots of pork, breads and cheeses. The most typical Czech dish is a few slices of pork in a sweet cream sauce, with bread dumplings. Hearty beef goulash in a bread bowl is also delicious and readily available. Many pubs also serve bread, cheese and garlic as a snack to accompany the beer. Some pubs I can thoroughly recommend are U Medvídků, U Glaubiců, Malostranská Pivnice, U Černého vola (The Black Ox), U Zlatého Tygra (The Golden Tiger), U Pinkasů and U Vejvodů. In the pubs, we unfortunately did not find many of the other beers listed as classical examples of Czech Lager in the BJCP guidelines. However, Bernard, Gambrinus, Pilsner Urquell, Budvar and Kozel beers are easily available in supermarkets like iTesco and Billa. Foralargerselection,onecanlookpast the traditional pubs and try the “Prague Beer Museum”, which is actually not a museum but a pub with 30 beers on tap. Some beers recommended there are Lucky Bastard IPA, MerlinDark Lager and Černá Hora Kvasar honey beer, which are all fromCzechmicrobreweries. There are also a few beer shops in town. The best beer shop we found was Pivoteka BeerGeek. It had very helpful staff and a decent selection of Czech, German, Belgian and other European beers. There are also a few brewpubs in Prague and these generally had a larger selection of beers, including more common craft beer styles. • U Tří Růží (The Three Roses): conveniently located near the old town square. They had a good West Coast IPA and what they called a Vienna Red Lager, which was basically a Vienna Lager. • Pivovarský Dům Benedict: a little further from the centre of town. They had a range of IPAs including a NEIPA, as well as other styles. • Strahov Monastery Brewery: similar to a Belgian abbey brewery, it is located in a monastery in town but is commercial andmakes no claim to be brewed or supervised by monks. They brew a very good range of beers under the St. Norbert label. The Dark Lager was the best, and they also had a very good hazy IPA. • U Medvídků: a typical pub serving Budvar beer, but they also make their own beers such as Oldgott and X-Beer 33 which they mistakenly claim to be the strongest beer in the world at 12.6%. We also managed to visit the Pilsner Urquell brewery in the town of Pilsen, about 90 minutes from Prague by train. (This was covered in a previous edition of On Tap by Lucy Corne, so will not be discussed in detail here.) Visiting the birthplace of lager beer is well worth it and should be on the bucket list of any beer enthusiast. The setup is quite commercial, with the usual souvenir shops, tour guides and a bar, but is still worth visiting for the parts that have not changed in more than a century, like the water towers and the maze of the underground tunnels used for lagering the beer. We definitely preferred the unfiltered version of the beer that is only served from vats in the tunnels to the regular version. If you find yourself in Pilsen, be sure to add this to your list. Na zdraví! Lagering in Pilsner Pilsner Urquell Ice Chamber Tunnels Pilsner Urquell Tunnels Pilsner Urquell