AFTER THE FIRE: Less can be more.

AFTER THE FIRE: Less can be more.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Kindly note that I’m changing the name of this column to reflect the fact that my involvement in the “craft” beer business no longer is active. As a recovering former small business owner, I survived the frying pan, and perhaps it’s time for an evolving perspective. Just don't expect me to jump back into that particular fire ... at least yet.

---

I remember being in Prague in the mid-1990s. We’d wander downtown neighborhoods hunting beer – sometimes hopping street cars, other times the subway, but most often on foot.

The objective was to find drafts from as many of the Czech Republic’s breweries as possible, and having identified these beers, to drink them straight down.

In retrospect, it isn’t clear to me what sort of legal framework for beer distribution even existed in the Czech Republic at the time. Something akin to a “tied house” seemed common, in that a pivnice (piv-nee-tsuh, or tavern) generally would serve beer from only one brewery.

These days, we’d quickly decamp to a multi-tap and be overwhelmed by sheer choice, and I’ve read that Prague now has such establishments boasting bountiful selections, as well as WiFi to enable the inevitable postings at Untappd, but this approach strikes me as tantamount to the king’s gamesmen running the animals past his shooting point.

It’s also no way to conduct a drinking tour of a city, especially when traveling overseas, where there’s so much else to learn.

20 years ago, many of Prague’s pubs served beers from one of the city’s “big three” breweries: Staropramen, Braník or Mestan, the latter two apparently long deceased as independent entities.

Other breweries were well represented, too, and it seemed the closer their home cities to Prague, the better chance of finding them. Pilsner Urquell was a given. Gambrinus, Velkopopovický and Radegast also were around, though at the time, the epochal Budvar not as much.

Intriguingly, it remained possible in the mid-1990s to find watering holes in Prague that had hooked up with smaller breweries, or even larger ones further away from the capital. There’d be occasional appearances by Ferdinand (from nearby Benešov), Hostan (Znojmo), Regent (Třeboň) or Starobrno (Brno). The trick was finding the places serving them, as they didn’t always correspond to addresses amid the prevailing tourist routes.

An obscure brewery called Herold became an obsession for my band of explorers. It was founded in the countryside in 1506, surviving the threat of closure in the waning months of the Communist period only because its stubborn plant manager refused to do what the authorities told him.

These authorities soon were gone, and the plant manager remained.

We seemingly traipsed over half of Prague one evening trying to find the sole pivnice that we’d been told poured Herold, and stopping frequently for directions at other establishments along the way. These wayfinding tips generally came accompanied by beers, which might explain our ultimate failure.

Resolving to locate the Herold brewery itself, eventually we did so with the help of a savvy travel agent in Prague, who secured a minibus and driver for a day’s journey deep into the Bohemian hinterlands.

First we visited the town of Velké Popovice for a Velkopopovický Kozel tasting, then Vysoký Chlumec (home of Lobkowitz), and finally the tiny town of Březnice, where a farmer on a tractor pulling a wagon overflowing with manure slowly guided our careful man at the wheel to the Herold brewery gate.

I’d contacted the manager, but he had an untimely emergency and wasn’t there, so his second in command made a hasty phone call, ran out the door, and soon emerged with a local schoolteacher in tow to serve as interpreter.

Our Herold brewery tour lasted all of 20 minutes, yielding to a considerably more intensive two-hour survey of the lagering cellar. By the end of our seminar below ground, we had absorbed so much knowledge that the ancient stone staircase leading back to the top began wildly undulating to the beat of non-existent music.

The magical motion very nearly kept us subterranean, which would have been just lovely by me.

Two decades later, much has changed in the Czech Republic -- and everywhere else in the world, too. Many of the old-school Czech breweries are gone (Herold survives), and a new crop of “craft” brewers has arrived.

Granted, the range of beer choice in Prague used to be far narrower, but it was a beer paradise nonetheless, and while it may sound as though I’m waxing nostalgic for a bygone era – one I devoted a full quarter-century of my professional life to revolutionizing – it’s very important to understand that yes, you bet I am … unless of course, I’m not.

Just as trudging eight miles robed in primitive bearskin through six-foot-high snow drifts helped transform a previous generation of mid-20th century schoolchildren into improved parents, hunting beers the hard way had its merits.

Beer tastes better when you work for it, and breweries, too; we’d follow a canal or rail line, sniff the unmistakable aroma of a boil in progress, and follow our noses to the goal line. The biggest problem was finding our way home.

---

The real reason I’m bringing all this up is because, as a consumer, there exists a little-known, positive connotation to the tied house: If it’s a Fuller’s pub, you know there’ll be Fuller’s served there. No guesswork is involved, and at times, this can be a good thing.

In the present era, unceasing “guest” tap rotation has morphed into something that’s incredibly diverse, but also no longer comes moored to any system or routine. It’s wonderful and chaotic, all at once.

Rotating guest taps made for a refreshing trend when acting as the changeable component alongside a non-revolving core selection, but we’ve long since settled into the rigid orthodoxy of a daily (hourly?) spin-the-flavor-wheel approach. Accordingly, fresh ideas for marketing and retailing a profusion of better beer choices have steadily diminished.

When the only constant is dizzying change, then surely for some establishments in search of a noteworthy market niche, resolving to give the pendulum a nudge in the opposite direction is merited. Either a semi-permanent selection of classics, or a single brewery’s popular range, would make for a distinctive strategy.

Naturally, I’m not sanctioning tied houses if by “tied” we mean contractually narrowed choice, especially via a swillmonger. And, of course, the tied house isn’t exactly legal in America – even when it happens, which is lamentably often.

Rather, I’m advocating a voluntary tie of sorts, and as always, I’m insistent that any beer and brewing knowledge base emanate from behind the bar, as reflected by an intelligent and coherent (if narrowed) selection, and mirroring the conceptual contours of an establishment’s wine and spirits program.

After all, everyone knows that a bar simply must have a core selection of liquor, but how does this not apply to beer styles?

Conversely, many bars in metropolitan Louisville proudly feature Brown-Forman wines and spirits. So, why not follow suit with an exclusive selection of Falls City’s genuinely independent local drafts?

Wouldn’t it make sense for an eatery on the Indiana side of the river to feature all Sun King drafts?

And isn’t it true that if one did, Sun King’s three flagships – Sunlight, Osiris and Wee Mac – would be the biggest sellers?

There are many ways of cultivating loyalty. My contention is that more customers than we tend to think actually like the idea of “their” favorite brand or style of beer, and when it comes to better (“craft”) beer, the merits of continuity are being vastly undervalued.

Accordingly, there’s a case to be made for making the process of choosing a regular beer easier for those who might become regular customers just because they know what to expect when they drop in for a sandwich.

Recently a friend was musing along these lines: “If I opened a pub, would I be crazy to have a three-tap keg box, pouring Guinness, Pilsner Urquell and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, with no guest taps at all?”

Aside from the absence of representative beer localism, no – he would not be crazy. In fact, there’d be something I personally like on tap, all the time.

And: There's only so much time in the first place.

---

June 13: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: I know I’m gonna change that tune.

June 6: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: A Mile Wide sidewalk superintendent.

May 30: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: “The Drinker” (A Book Review).

May 23: THE POTABLE CURMUDGEON: A few beers on Estonian time (Part Two).

__

Czech president says "American beer is just filthy water."

Back in the mid-1990’s, when Anheuser-Busch resolved to violently poach Budweiser Budvar from the citizenry of the Czech Republic as a means of “resolving” the century-old trademark dispute between the American industrial alcopop monolith and the traditional Czech craft beer maker, several enterprising journalists traveled into Bohemia with units of American Budweiser in tow.

Impromptu taste tests were organized with local beer drinkers, and unsurprisingly, the verdict was rather abysmal for the brewing philistines from St. Louis. I’ll always remember one man’s response when asked to pass judgment on Budweiser:

Not fit for humans to drink, but ideal as pet shampoo.

Given Milos Zeman's recent record of public buffoonery, it isn't clear whether the Czech president is a reliable commentator on anything, much less beer. "Craft" beer definitely exists in his country, and traditional lager makers also clearly excel. What he actually knows about beer isn't clear, and doesn't matter.

But the funniest aspect of all this is that Zeman made his comments to Nursultan Nazarbaev, who became Communist party leader in Kazakhstan before the Berlin Wall even came down. My guess is they weren't drinking beer while chatting.

Thanks to DW for the link.

‘American beer is just filthy water’ - Czech President (RT)

The Czech president Milos Zeman eulogized his country’s trademark beverage, while insulting US beer as “filthy water” during a presidential business summit in the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan.

Asked about which beer is the best in the world, by the longtime Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev, Zeman did not hesitate.

“We have built several breweries here already. We might make good planes, cars or other products, but most importantly, never forget - Czech beer is the best in the world,” said the 70-year-old.

“No American company that offers some filthy water instead of beer, can compete with us.”

"I would like to ask you to send me some beer items."

If you own a brewery or work for one, you probably know the drill. E-mails constantly arrive from overseas (oddly, with the exception of Nigeria), asking you to send beer labels, crown caps and the like to become the cherished keepsakes of private collectors who've heard of your beer, even in far-off Vladivostok or the Amazon Basin.

The return mailing's on your dime, of course. The cynical way to view these requests is to imagine that they're just a way for traders to build up swap stocks. I suppose many are. Apart from cynicism, and absent the money for postage, no one's getting a snail mail freebie; sorry. The images can be freely cribbed on-line, anyway.

Fewer Americans seeking labels go fishing on e-mail. They generally will send a stamped, self-addressed envelope via the US Mail. At NABC, we try to oblige them, irrespective of what they plan on doing with whatever items they're given.

But there's something that nags me about the foreign requests, which tend to come from Central/Eastern European locales, these being of longtime interest to me historically and geographically. Lately, I've been pasting the addresses into Google Map and seeing what their houses look like. For some reason, I find it a melancholy exercise, and I'm unsure why.

Transferral, perhaps?

The home of Tomas from Czech Republic is above. Katarzyna lives in Poland (below). Actually, Tomas's request was to publicize a beer app he'd created. 

These look like nice places to live, and I hope no protocols are being violated by my depicting their homes, seeing as there's a drone outside my front door as I type.

I just can't help wondering: What's the rest of the story?

Let's talk about those Kout na Šumavě lagers, because they're pouring now.

As of the opening of business on Monday at the Pizzeria & Public House, our three rare lagers from the Kout na Šumavě brewery in Czech Republic are pouring as billed. Thanks as always to Shelton Brothers and Starlight Distribution for bringing these choices to our attention and delivering, and to Eric for tapping them. Here's the list:

Pale 10º
Pale 12º
Dark 18º

As a prelude to what follows, you probably recall that I was fortunate to have traveled in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, and accordingly, I enjoyed quite a few excellent beers that in my opinion actually benefited from the communist system.

Now, this may sound ridiculous at first utterance, but consider that outside of a few heavy export hitters (Pilsner Urquell prime among them), more than a few traditional lager breweries in Czechoslovakia routinely were denied substantial investment capital during the communist era. Rather, they were compelled to continue brewing the old-fashioned way ... and maybe that wasn't a problem at all.

After communism, when most of these breweries were privatized (read: sold off to western brewing conglomerates), their operations were modernized and streamlined. To my palate during subsequent trips, this "upgrading" had an effect on traditional Czech lager similar to what happens when the human voice is subjected to Auto-Tune. The beers became technically brilliant, and thus perfectly boring.

It was only a matter of time until the counter-revolution, and although I've not been to the area since 2006, I'm endlessly pleased to read of numerous small brewery start-ups. Modern-think stole character from the lagers; now the new generation is stealing it back. I enthusiastically approve this message, and I want to go back some sweet day. Please?

Until then, and with the help of the Kout na Šumavě brewery website (in English and Czech) and Ron Pattinson's seminal European Beer Guide section on Czech Republic, here's a glimpse at the three visitors. I tasted all of them earlier.

Koutská „tap“ blonde beer 10°/Koutská desítka - výčepní světlé pivo 10%
3-4% (8-10° Plato)
Pattinson: "Pale, low-strength lager. In German the name "Světlé Výčepní Pivo" translates as "Helles Schankbier". Usually highly-attenuated and fairly hoppy. Not lagered for any great time, such beers are sold 3-4 weeks after mashing. The most popular style of beer in the Czech Republic."

Note that desítka simply means the number ten. In general, the term výčepní can mean tapping, tap or draft; in the sense of 10° Czech beer, it seems to denote and perhaps emphasize the lower gravity. Because lower gravity lagers are less expensive, they're the big sellers in the Czech Republic. Crisp and sessionable.

Koutská Blonde lager 12°/Koutská dvanáctka - světlý ležák 12%
4.4 - 5% (11-12.5° Plato)
"The classic Czech pale lager style. The name means the same as "Helles Lagerbier" in German. Individual beers vary greatly, from sweetish and malty (like Pilsner Urquell) to dry and hoppy (Budvar). One thing they all have in common is being heavily hopped with good quality aroma hops (such as Saaz). Beers in this style should be lagered for 2-3 months before sale."

Likewise, dvanáctka means twelve. You may have noticed that the Czech custom is to render the °as %, which can play games with the minds of tourists. Kout na Šumavě's 12° golden lager fits Pattinson's description perfectly; it isn't just the extra body, but perfectly balanced hops from bittering through flavor and aroma.

Now the judgment gets a bit harder. Koutská's Special dark beer 18° is excellent, with a roasty malt edge and balanced sweetness that does not seem to approach Doppelbock's (the body seems light for Doppelbock). I'm not sure which style it best fits. Maybe here:

Special dark beer 18°/Koutský tmavý speciál - tmavé speciální pivo 18%Tmavé (Černé) Speciální Pivo
8 - 10% (18-24° Plato)
"Dark doppelbock. Includes the strongest Czech lagers."

Tmavé is "dark" and Černé is "black." Is it Dopelbock, or it it an example of the nearly extinct Czech style of Porter, which Pattinson likens to the Polish variety?

Porter
8 - 9% (19-20° Plato)
"Black lagers. Very full-bodied beers, with lots of dark malt flavours and a good dose of bitterness. Pre- WW II, the standard top-end beer of Czech breweries. Getting rare."

Beats me. Perhaps further information will be forthcoming.

I can say this: These Kout na Šumavě lagers are as good as I hoped they would be. There's a regrettable tendency for today's enthusiast to dismiss "mere" lager, which finds itself outgunned by extreme styles, and yet, in the end, this means only that there'll be more left for me -- and that'll do wonderfully, at least until the next Czech trip can be taken.

Wednesday Weekly: Once upon a time, Pilsner Urquell as the "best beer" in Prague.

Today's writing constitutes a rerun of sorts, because this week's tragic wholesaler error also, sadly, is a repeat. To paraphrase a favorite line of mine: You can depend on Monarch Beverage -- it'll ALWAYS let you down.

Pilsner Urquell has been pouring at the Public House since about 1993 or 1994. Continuously. Never stopping. All the time. Always. Get the picture? Those interested in knowing why will continue reading the essay reprinted below.

Now, these many years later, it is revealed that Monarch, the whoa-stud examplar of beer sales in the Midwest, has become unable to sell 24 quarter-barrel kegs of Urquell in the entire state of Indiana before the sell-by date expires.

That's right: The entire state.

Sales sloth and corporate indifference aside, you'd think that after all this time, someone in a position of authority would take it upon themselves to personally explain to the Publican (that's me) why his or her company is dropping the draft version of a staple product that has been on tap at my place for more than 15 years.

But that would require something approximating a commitment to customer service, wouldn't it?

These guys are worse than Big Red Liquors. While I contemplate ways to make them pay, consider the following.

---

Many times I’ve been asked to name my favorite beer, or to identify the best beer in the world. Just as many times, I’ve responded that these are questions beyond my pay grade, and simply cannot be answered.

To take it a step further, such questions make me wary in a philosophical sense. To find the “best” or the “favorite” implies conclusiveness, but certainty in this fashion neither suits the pursuit of the perfect pint nor lends itself to a world in constant flux. The definitions change, and the criteria are altered. It’s why the search continues, and won’t ever yield finality.

However, on scattered occasions, I’ve taken a stab responding to, “What’s the best beer you ever tasted?” Usually a disclaimer is merited: “At the time.” The essay that follows was written in the early 1990’s. I wouldn’t offer the same answer today. But the story recounts one of my fondest travel memories.

----

The times of one’s life, the places, and the people ...

To be as precise as possible, the best beer I’d ever tasted (at the time) was consumed at two o’clock in the afternoon on Monday, July 13, 1987. The beer was draft Pilsner Urquell, known in its native Czech as Plzensky Prazdroj, and the setting was an old tavern in that great brewing nation’s lovely capital, Prague.

In June, 1987, I joined my good friend and longtime drinking companion Barrie Ottersbach for a group tour of the Soviet Union that began in Moscow, passed through Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Latvia and Lithuania, and ended in Warsaw, Poland. As evening approached on July 12, Barrie and I stood alone in the shadow of the monstrous Stalinist Gothic Palace of Culture in downtown Warsaw, having concluded the tour in appropriate fashion with a session at the hard currency bar of a nearby hotel. We bowed to the edifice, and set off by foot for the central train station to hop the sole overnight non-express to Czechoslovakia.

We’d been dazed by an afternoon of inexpensive Bulgarian cabernet, amazed at having uncovered a few bottles of Austrian-brewed Kaiser Bier at the Hotel Forum’s foreign currency bar, and largely felt unfazed at the prospect of the trip ahead.

Of course, these being the days of waning Communism, our jovial mood couldn’t have lasted very long. Although our essential documents – passports, train tickets and couchette reservations – were in order, we had neglected to pack food and drink for the journey. It was Sunday. All stores were closed, and mini-marts were in short supply in Communist Poland in 1987; in fact, so short that they had yet to be written into the five-year plan.

Our backpacks bulged with Soviet black market booty, and we strained to lug them along while desperately foraging for victuals in the vicinity of the rail station’s platforms. Even with handfuls of colorful Zloty, there was nothing to purchase except grainy licensed Swiss chocolate and returnable bottles of imitation cola. The final whistle blew. We boarded hungry, and did the best we could to sleep in the stifling summer heat.

Twelve hours later the marathon rail crawl finally ground to a halt, and we stumbled into Prague’s Hlavni nadrazi station looking like bedraggled refugees from a war zone. Stomachs audibly growling, poorly rested, filthy and quite thirsty, the sodas having long since been drained, we dragged our belongings to the baggage storage check and lightened the load.

Departing the station, we were treated to our first glimpses of Prague’s timeless majesty and the city’s then-current reality: Standing in front of the museum at the top of the long, gentle rise of Wenceslas Square, against a backdrop of the old city sparkling in a bright morning sun, a taxi driver sidled over and asked us if we’d like to change money.

Several minutes later, one of the three official room finding agencies placed us for three nights in an athletic club dormitory on the outskirts of the city. It would be several hours before we could check into the room. Starving and parched, we were cast into the mysterious, gorgeous, crumbling city to fend for ourselves.

Exhilaration temporarily overcame fatigue as we ventured into the winding streets, over cobbled roadways and through strange arches. Soon, to our growing excitement, we found that the city boasted more than spires, spies, stucco and scaffolding – beer was all around us, and pubs were in abundance!

After two weeks in the Polish and Soviet lands, where vodka reigned supreme, we were at long last in Bohemia, the Euphrates of European lager brewing tradition, and the home of the original Pilsner beer. We resolved to walk a bit more before finding a good place to enjoy a draft beer – preferably Pilsner Urquell or Staropramen, or another Prague brand if necessary.

Armed only with an inadequate tourist map, Barrie and I crossed the Vltava River on the famed Charles Bridge, ascended Castle Hill, wandered down the other side, crossed the river again at a second bridge, and finally were devoured by the twisting alleyways that we knew eventually led back to Wenceslas Square. At length, having paused briefly two hours before for a sausage dispensed from a tiny streetside window, we glimpsed the familiar green script of Pilsner Urquell adorning the façade of a faded, orange-painted building.

The final steps were the hardest. We passed through the stout wooden doors of U Dvou Kocek, where Pilsner Urquell indeed was the house beer, the daily beer, and in fact the only beer available.

Blissfully unaware of protocol, we slumped heavily into wooden benches in an interior hallway. Unconsciously drooling, our beleaguered senses slowly were revived by the cozy, smoky, conspiratorial warmth of the main room, where clusters of Czech workers, students, soldiers and officials sat conversing.

Huge platters of pork and dumplings sat before many of the customers, but to man, each and every patron cradled an indescribably lovely mug of beer – and make no mistake: They were glass mugs, not the more stylish half-liter glasses that supplanted them not long afterward. It seemed too good to be true … and almost was.

Alarmingly, the waiters completely ignored us.

We opted for direct action. I limped to the long, imposing counter where a brawny, mustachioed man stood next to a pair of matching taps, both pouring the exact same nectar, and with a wheeled cart filled with clean mugs. Mustering my courage, I flashed four fingers and muttered, “Pivo, prosim,” having miraculously recalled the proper words without stealing a glance at the guidebook buried somewhere in my day pack.

He looked at me quite seriously, then smiled and complied, relieving me of roughly $2.00 while pushing four half-liter drafts across the slick countertop.

The brilliant golden liquid was cool, not ice-cold; frozen beer only numbs the palate, and though appropriate for Pabst, it certainly isn’t necessary for anything as grand as Urquell. The noble hop aroma was evident and enticing, fighting through the billowing white head to reach my nose even at arm’s length. Everything about the beer itself and the venue in which it was about to be consumed spoke of quality, respect, tradition, and the sheer, unbridled joy that one feels to be an adult and to think, feel and understand what is good about life.

When Barrie saw me approach, he bolted from the wooden bench and fell to his knees in a spontaneous demonstration of faith and appreciation that I’ve seldom witnessed in any church – such was the genuine, heartfelt intensity prefacing his gesture of supplication. Seconds later I spotted his eyes, wet with unrestrained tears, his cheeks flecked with beer foam, all visible through the thick base of an empty upturned mug.

Needless to say, my reaction was comparable. I’ll never forget this moment of triumph and revelation, of this sense of beer ecstasy that will never be understood or truly appreciated by anyone who defines beer by the number of calories it contains or the volume of advertising revenue it commands.

Inspirational Czech beer video.

There are times when it isn't all about diversity in terms of beer style and available choices, even if nowadays in the Czech Republic, there are many microbreweries producing a broader range of styles than before. A ginger-spiced beer I drank outside Prague in 2006 was perhaps the best such creation I've ever tasted.

The Czech lands remain a place to go and drink golden lagers, many of them sufficiently worthy to be included in the same breath as Budvar and Urquell, and some better. In the 1980's, I could have joyfully consumed these beers on a daily basis for the remainder of my life. In 2010, it gets boring, and fast, but the key to it all -- and why this video made me ache -- is the Czech Republic itself, its people and architecture and landscapes. I have so many warm memories of being there, enough to last forever.

Enjoy the video (in English). Thanks to Joe for the link.

Češi: Národ pivařů