Real Bohemian Lager

If you can't sample real Bohemian lager in the Czech Republic itself then surely the next best place must be the Embassy of the Czech Republic in London?

I was lucky to be invited by CzechTrade to attend a Real Bohemian Lager workshop at the embassy on 16 May 2019. The event was organised in conjunction with Euroboozer, a leading UK importer of fine speciality craft brewed beers.

My preparation for the event involved a look at Evan Rail's Good Beer Guide Prague & the Czech Republic (2007) which I had last used on my first and only trip to Prague in 2008.
The Czech Republic has the highest per capita consumption of beer in the world according to Wikipedia 143.3 litres (2016). In contrast, 25th placed UK beer consumption is 67.7 litres (2016).

Situated east of Notting Hill Gate and west of the embassy of the Russian Federation, the 1970 building of the Czech embassy was designed as a tribute to the avant-garde Brutalist style. A lot of concrete and glass was used in its construction! After a major remodelling, the Czech embassy reopened in November 2017.

On arrival it was nice to be welcomed by Eva Provot of CzechTrade and Mitch Adams of Euroboozer and find myself in the company of Britain's best beer writers and judges. A useful welcome pack included a map showing industrial and craft breweries (above) and a Beer Guide to Prague which can also be found online.

OnTheWorld map shows Bohemia in west of Czech Republic

Ushered into the cinema we were welcomed by Martin Macourek of CzechTrade. He introduced Czech master brewer Jan / Honza Kočka linked with Kocour brewery and now involved with the Nomád project, a 'flying brewery' that brews on the equipment of others. 

We were informed that there would soon be a new website for the Czech Beer Alliance of eight breweries including Cvikov. Two representatives from Cvikov brewery had flown to London to join us for the workshop. 

page from Pivovar Cvikov website showing tanks and brewing vessels

A video was screened showing scenes from Cvikov brewery that included the 22 horizontal lager / maturation tanks and a healthy young man carrying a sack of malted barley over his shoulders up a flight of stairs. It was surprising that a lift or hoist did not exist for this task?!

Martyn Railton, the 'Austrian Londoner' of Euroboozer, mentioned his lifelong interest in collecting beer glasses. Martyn also provided a useful modern history of Czech brewing. A key date was the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 after which Heineken moved in and breweries were consolidated. More recently business people have been buying up old disused brewery buildings and remaining equipment to set up new independent breweries. Many of the independent breweries have adopted the double or triple decoction mashing style which involves extra time and effort.

Katarina Hobbs, from Czech Tourism, admitted that Czech beer was her favourite drink. She mentioned that cycle and hiking trails to breweries have been developed and that there are beer festivals like the Brno festival (31/7/-3/8/2019) and the Sun in the Glass festival at Purkmistr brewery, Plzeň (Pilsen) which feature smaller breweries.

Czech master brewer Jan / Honza Kočka of Nomád brewing project was the final speaker. Jan said it was a visit to CAMRA's Great British Beer Festival in 2000 that opened his eyes to the wide realm of beer. After visiting the Great American Beer Festival later that year he was 'totally into beer'.
He mentioned that prior to 2000 it was difficult for microbreweries in the Czech Republic to succeed but afterwards the concept began to catch on.
Real Bohemian Lager is brewed with Czech malt and the Saaz hop producing a quaffable and thirst quenching pilsner in the 4%-5.2% ABV range. However, if dry hopping is involved it should not be called pilsner but rather lager or IPL.
Although many traditional and some new independent breweries use double or triple decoction, his Nomád brewing uses the simpler single decoction which is good enough for pilsner.
Jan recommended visiting the Czech Republic as it is a small country, with relatively short distances to travel around and visit breweries and historic towns.

He particularly recommended visiting the beer festivals that feature small breweries. The festival at Prague castle gardens 14-15 June 2019 includes over 60 breweries. The Sun in the Glass festival at the Purkmistr brewery on the outskirts of Pilsen 20-21 September 2019 includes 70 breweries.

The afternoon continued with a beer tasting led by Jan / Honza Kočka. Our tables were set with glasses and a sheet listing the beers to be tasted.

Without any previous experience of a serious beer tasting exercise I was lucky to be sitting at the back, near Jeff Evans, Chairman of the International Beer Challenge, who I could follow without any major breach of etiquette. Key points are not to fill your glass to the brim and not to drink all the beer in the glass.
Relevant details for each beer on the sheet were projected on a screen e.g. Cvikov 12° / Draught / Style: Premium pale lager / Malts: Pilsener / Hops: Saaz hops, Premiant / ABV 4.9% / IBU 32.

We started with shared bottles of Holba 11°, Bohemia Regent 12° (with CzechTrade Export Special label) and Kutna Hora 12° poured into straight glasses.
The draught beers served in stemmed glasses were Muflon 11°, Cvikov 12°, Albrecht 11°, Kanec 12°, Kanec 12° Vienna.

Large bottles with flip tops from Frýdlant brewery were for different styles. We enjoyed Albrecht Philipp 13° (American Pale Ale with Victoria Secret and Enigma hops) and Albrecht Katerina 12° (Czech Dark Premium Lager with Czech Light, Munich, Caramel, Chocolate and Black malts).
Finally we reverted to a draught Real Bohemian Lager - Cvikov 10° to finish the tasting on a lighter note.
A useful tip from Jan / Honza for roughly converting degrees Plato (or Balling) to ABV is to subtract 2 and then divide by 2 so that 12° becomes 5% ABV.

Jan / Honza could now relax with a lager! 
The lagers I was keen to taste again were Albrecht 11° and Cvikov 12°.

My thanks go to all involved with the workshop. I look forward to the next event and to visiting beer festivals, breweries and bars in the Czech Republic!