Back at the beginning of this trip, Paul and I met a young man in Beersel at the 3 Fonteinen Brewery, Lukáš Provaznik. Like us, he was in town for the Brussels Beer Weekend and was now hunting down beers in the lambic towns just outside of the city. He is a beer geek like me, but with a depth of knowledge about the industry, ingredients and beer styles that was surprising. He is from Brno, the Czech Republic’s second largest city. During the afternoon at the 3 Fonteinen open house, I told him about my tour and that I was eventually on my way to Prague. He said he would be happy to provide me with a list of brewpubs and good beer bars to check out. We exchanged emails and went our own separate ways. About two weeks later he sent me a note, saying he had some time off, would be happy to be my personal beer guide in Brno and that he would be studying at a brewing school in Prague, and would be happy to show me the best beers and beer bars there as well. So, I added Brno to my list of places to visit and went to visit him there.
I took the train out of Vienna and into the Czech Republic on a Monday morning, not really knowing what to expect, other than I thought this to be the land of the original crisp and clean pilsner. On route, while studying my own list of Czech Breweries, I met Jessica and Johann, a Canadian couple on their honeymoon in Europe, and they just happened to be from Calgary too. Wow, it really is a small world, isn’t it? We exchanged stories of our travels and then I hopped off the train in Brno, while they carried on to Prague. Brno is home to one large brewery, Starobrno, and two brewpubs. So, I made my way to one of the brewpubs, the Pegas Hostinsky Pivovar, attached to the Hotel Pegas in the downtown area.
This brewpub was established in 1991, not long after the Velvet Revolution. They have a traditional style beer hall with the brew house on display in the middle and serve four unfiltered beers. The waiter seemed to speak no English, so I pointed to one of the beers on the beer menu card to start. He brought me Psenicne pivo (12° Plato), some sort of wheat beer served with a slice of lemon floating on top of the beer, but hidden by the big, frothy head. I was a bit surprised, but it was refreshing enough after my walk there and light in body, with an obviously citric dominance, but not really what I expected for my first beer in the Czech Republic. I next pointed to the bottom of the list, at a beer called Pegas Gold (16° Plato), the house special. It certainly was a gold coloured and malty brew, with a nice head that falls quickly, some hop aroma, but the palate is one of malt and alcohol. It is rather thin for a beer of this strength and finishes sweetly. As I waited for Lukas to arrive, I ordered the 12° Plato Tmavy Lezak (dark lager). It had a creamy tan head, full body, smooth mouthfeel with some roasty-toasty hints of black malt, chocolate and caramel with a hop bitterness that balanced the finish. I soon realized I was having my own private Oktoberfest as the waiter kept bringing me ½ liter steins (I didn’t know how to order anything smaller) and was half gunned by the time Lukáš arrived and dragged me out of there.
Next we had an 11 degree Plato unfiltered lager at Zelena kocka, a tied house for Akciovy pivovar Dalesice. It had fresh, almost citric overtones, slight haze, gold colour and a beautiful white head that left some lacing. The 13 P Dark Lager was very brown with a tan head, slightly sweet malt nose with a smooth mouthfeel and pleasant palate. We got these served, by the way, in smaller glasses. Lukas tuned me in: a stein is a krygl (500 ml), a glass is a stuc (300 ml), ½ liter is called pullitr and a tuplák is a full liter (Krýgl is Mug or Stein or Seidel, štuc is glass without handle - similar to Stange. It could be in variety size, usually 500 ml or 300 ml.).
By way of comparison, we went to U Richarda, not one of Lukáš’ favourite places, and quite frankly the beers were unremarkable. They had a bottom fermented pale wheat beer (11° Plato, no real fruitiness, cold, cloudy) and some sort of fruity pale lager (12° Plato, some malt present, some hop in the finish). Lukáš has understandably high standards and does not have too many good things to say about some of the beers one finds in Brno bars. I laughed sometimes at his descriptions, but he is studying to become a brew master and says (with a wry smile) that this situation is no laughing matter. Too many beers are boring mainstream industrial clones of each other, too many bartenders never clean their taps, too many servers have no idea, nor do they care, what they are serving. Sound familiar Canada?
So, we ended the night at the bar where he works, Na Bozence, named after the famous Czech writer, Božena Němcová. It was Monday night, but the place was packed. They have three taps. Only one tap is for guest beers, other two are reserved for extra hoppy Poutník and unfiltered Poutník. That night they were serving a beer from the Malostransky pivovar Velke Mezirici. Harrach Vidensky lezak is a 13.8° Plato (6.2%) sort of Vienna style lager. The Czech pale lager from Poutnik from Pelhrimov, 12° Plato, filtered and extra hoppy. They did have a Mahr’s Undespundet-hefetrüb (kellerbier) from Bamberg, but, alas, it ran out earlier in the evening. There were a couple of other kegs waiting in the beer fridge for the days to come. This is a typical neighbourhood pub, a small hole-in-the-wall kind of place, with no food available, except some local cheeses and sausage, and very popular with the locals. We had great conversations, of course, all about beer. The origin of Maerzen, the near extinction of the Vienna style lager, how important balance is in a beer versus the over-the-top styles so much the fad right now, North American beers versus European, North German lagers versus South German lagers, Slovak versus Czech and Bohemian versus Moravian beers. Lukáš is a great conversationalist when it comes to beer.
It was a good day and a great night, for my first 12 hours in the Czech Republic and I would especially like to thank Lukáš, since the reason he wasn’t working was because he had broken a finger the week before, had his left hand in a cast and was wrapped in bandages up to his elbow. He informed me that he had classes at the brewing institute in Prague the next day and we could get a ride with a friend of his, Cipis, who was going there on a beer run to pick up new beers for his pub. Sounded good to me!
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