The Ease of Misunderstanding Czech Beer

This photo, captured on my camera, was actually taken by Max Bahnson--a better photographer than I.

The golden lagers of the Czech Republic are at once the easiest and most elusive beers in the world.  They are easy because, unlike goses and gueuzes, they are imprinted on our brains as the most basic form of "beer."  Frothy, sparkling, pale--no instruction manual required.  We even have two of the most important and tasty examples at hand in Budvar and Pilsner Urquell, which means we don't have to put our brains through a remote intellectual exercise to appreciate them.  A quick visit to a decent grocery store or any bottle shop, and we can be drinking some of the world's best Czech lagers in a half hour.

But the ways in which they elude us are much more important and, after four days of intense remedial study in the Czech Republic, where I found the true story lies.  From a great distance, all Czech pilsners--světlé pivo, "pale lagers" in Czech--look alike.  If pressed, you might admit that hoppy Pilsner Urquell, with its very round body and dollop of diacetyl, isn't actually all that like the drier Budvar, with its subtle kiss of bitterness.  But, eh, really, they're yellow and fizzy and mostly all the same.

An analogy will due to dispel this poor reasoning.  Put your mind on hoppy American ales, which from a great distance also appear a lot alike.  Now, imagine the perspective of a foreign beer drinker--a Czech, say--who believes he understands the style well enough because he has ready access to Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA and New Belgium Ranger.  Would you say he has an adequate understanding of hoppy American ales?

Given a simple template, it's possible to make beers that are startlingly different. That's as true with pilsners as IPAs.  I spent last week in Prague and Pilsen on a mini odyssey of discovery (on, full disclosure, a junket financed entirely by Pilsner Urquell), where I reacquainted myself with favorites like Únětické 12° (possibly the best pale lager in the world) and Pilsner Urquell (the unfiltered version is a revelation), and discovered new delights like Kout na Šumavě, Pivovar na Rychtě, and U Tří růží.  If you don't have access to the range of these beers, you can't appreciate how diverse they really are.  Once you start adding the different presentations--served with live yeast, unfiltered, from the "tank"--the dimensions grow like new galaxies. 

Over the next couple weeks, I'll try to unpack what I learned on the trip, which ranged from the pubs to the hop fields to a the top of the old water tower at Pilsner Urquell.  I may even make a comment or two about Czech dumplings, which were a minor feature of our travels.  It is a world that can't be fully accessed with the mind--you need your tongue and nose--but perhaps it will inspire a trip to the Czech lands or two.  Half liters only cost a buck and a half!

More to come--