My left Achilles tendon had been nagging me the last couple of months, preventing me from partaking in what is probably my favourite outdoor activity, beer hikes. They are usually around 20 km long (though the longest was 30) and end with several beers at a brewery or a similar establishment, and often include at least one beery stopover along the way.
Things seemed to have improved the last few days (right before my appointment with the doctor, of course), and the weather last Saturday promised to be ideal for such an outing, with temperatures not expected to surpass the 25 °C mark; even the threat of showers wouldn’t discourage me.
The destination this time would be Pivovar Kladno Kročehlavy, which, besides being located 21.5 km from my place, operates in facilities that once were a brewery. I have a soft spot for pivovary like Kročehlavy, and sometimes I wonder if this isn’t a phenomenon unique to Czechia (probably not?).
During the four decades of their regime, the communists closed dozens of breweries throughout the country, with a bunch more biting the dust later as a result of capitalism, in most cases, because their new foreign owners decided they were not worth keeping. The buildings of many, if not most were either torn down or transformed in office and/or residential facilities, which you can see in Prague in Holešovice or Nusle. But quite a few have survived in fairly good shape, with some even getting their original purpose back, like those in Únětice, Hostomice, Lobeč and, of course Kostelenc n. Černými lesy, a truly resurrected brewery. I was looking forward to seeing how Kladno’s case compared.
I set out shortly before noon, after a hearty but not heavy lunch. According to Mapy.cz, the route doesn’t have steep inclines and passes through a number of villages – maybe there’ll be some beer stopovers along the way?
The fist town is Otvovice, birthplace of one the biggest stars in Czech show business, Lucie Bilá. She still lives there and, to her credit, she saved the local pub, Formanka Otvovice, from certain demise, along with the attached kulturák. I used to there quite often, for lunch mostly, and I remember it as a more than solid spot for food and pivo if you happened to be around. But I haven’t dropped by for two or three years at least, and this is a great excuse to revisit it.
There aren’t many people in the patio when I arrive, and inside, there’s a private event – a funeral it seems. I go to the outdoor výčep to get a Bernard. It’s a 0.4… Really? Fuck that! This is something that really rubs me the wrong way, because the only reason this measure exists is to hide high prices. It is already bad enough when a place serves 0.4s right from the start, like Dva Kohouti, but Formanka used to serve half litres! I understand that restaurants have to raise prices, and I have nothing against that. But this is disingenuous; shrinkflation by any other name, and if we rightfully complain when big companies do it, I don’t see why small businesses should get a pass. The funniest thing here, though, is that the beer isn’t even expensive. At 38 CZK for 0.4l, a full portion comes to about 48 CZK, which is a more than reasonable price these days, even in a village. But there’s no point shouting at clouds, and I finish my “legal podmirák” and get back on the road, promising never to come again, just like I did three years ago with Pivovar Bubeneč when they pulled the same shit.
The next village is Zakolany. There used to be a nice pub there, with a beautiful garden, U Libuše, but it shut down a couple of years back and, unfortunately, that situation hasn’t changed. In fact, Formanka is the only watering hole I will see along my route, and only because I took a minor detour out of nostalgia.
I don’t care, most of the way is either along fields or in the shade of trees, far from any roads, and once I set my pace, I soon enter an almost meditative state, with my thoughts running free while I pay close attention to everything that surrounds me, sounds included—birds, trees, the wind, a creek, the rhythm of my footsteps, the flowers, the houses and the few people that cross my path.
That idyll lasts until I enter Kladno, under the watchful eyes of the cooling towers of the local heating plant, and the route takes me through the remnants, if not the carcass of what once was one of the hearts of Czechoslovak heavy industry. It is quite disheartening, but it doesn’t affect my spirits, because I’m getting closer to my destination. My legs are beginning to feel heavy, but they quicken the pace regardless, because they reward is near.
I reach the old brewery about four hours after leaving home. I don’t see any sign of a taproom, let alone a beer garden, and the gate to enter the facility is locked. I consult the map again, and notice that the pivovarská zahrada is around the block, behind the brewery complex.
It’s nice, and almost empty when I arrive. I get a 8°, which my tasting buds barely register, not due to any fault of the beer, but because it disappears faster than the Road-Runner. It’s soon followed by a 10° and a 12°, and a bowl of crisps mixed with a bunch of other things that turns out to be a very good beer snack.
More people are arriving, locals mostly, I reckon, but there are couple of other tourists like me. The staff puts on music, a playlist probably titled “Xennial Greatest Hits”, or something like that, which is weird, given that the boy and girl working the kitchen and taps respectively must be in their early twenties at most, and two little kids, barely older than toddlers, start dancing to the tunes, putting up an adorably funny show.
More beers follow: an 11° APA (bottom of the keg), a Session Hazy IPA (as boring as every murky IPA out there), another APA (from a fresh keg and better this time), another 12°, and I close with a small Raspberry Gose, only for the sake of ticking – Gose is a beautiful style on its own right and I don’t understand why breweries bother with it, if they’re going to fuck it up with frozen fruit pure. In any case, all the beers are more than competent enough, but it’s not their quality that keeps me going the výčep, it’s the sheer atmosphere for this garden, which has become phenomenal, with an already good number of punters, all having one hell of a good time. I hope the people who live around here appreciate this place, because they are very fortunate to have it.
I’m sitting on the train to Prague, listening to music, feeling, like after every one of my beer hikes, delightfully tired. Can’t wait for the next one.
Na Zdraví!
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