Thank you for the pilsner
The Czech Republic gave the world its most popular beer style. Alastair Gilmour sends his thanks
The house lights dim; a ripple of applause sweeps the auditorium; a familiar tune begins as Tony Bennett raises the microphone. Spotlight, anticipation, the moment.
“I left my scarf... in Cesky Krumlov...” The celebrated crooner may not have mislaid his muffler, but I certainly did earlier this year. We had been attached for some time but drifted apart in Na Ostrove, high on a hill in the heritage town in South Bohemia in the Czech Republic. The bread with chunky pork fat and smoked bacon had been a distraction, or was it the pork cutlet and potato pancake? Could it perhaps have been the slivovice – plum brandy – or the local Eggenberg Svetle Lezak, a powerfully floral beer with sweet butterscotch notes and a zesty, firm, delightfully balanced character? Or was it the classic Budweiser Budvar, that attractivelyheaded beer with its nasal grapefruit sharpness, viscous, bittersweet body and dry biscuit malt palate?
Cesky Krumlov is a World Heritage Site, effectively two towns which merged into one after centuries of brewing disputes. Bickering over wheat beer privileges were solved by simply uniting neighbours Latran and Krumlov – and their breweries, which have been passed from the Eggenberg family to the Schwarzenbergs and on to present owners, Dionex. (You don’t have to delve far into Czech history to uncover an Eggenberg hand or a Schwarzenberg influence somewhere along the line). Czechs take immense satisfaction at being regarded as the world’s greatest brewing nation – a.....
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By Alastair Gilmour
Section : International Focus
Page number : 44
