Pivní Filosof - Beer Philosopher

My wife is from Příbram, she goes often to visit her dad and some chores for him—he's old and not in the best health. I don't. I don't like that town at all, and I limit my visits to two a year, which is two more than I would like. Last Saturday was one of those visits. We went to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday together with the rest of my family-in-law. This time, though, I had a plan. After a so-so lunch at a restaurant with a waiter who committed unspeakable acts against beer, and eating the cake, I told my wife I'd go for a walk—to Pivovar Podlesí , just outside town, and about 3.5 km from the old man's house. It was a fairly warm day, but the walk, though far from pretty, wasn't hard, and I was standing in front of the brewpub half an hour later. Pivovar Podlesí opened in late 2013. I'd only had one of their beers, an IPA, that had been surprisingly good, especially for a new brewery, but I hadn't heard much about the rest of what ...

Gambrinus seems to have picked the ball right where the Budweiser Superbowl ad left it, and ran with it, full speed, head down; subtlety be fucked. What they've done with Pivovar Patron is, in a way, amazing (and quite insane). For those out of the loop, this is how the story goes: A month or so ago, the beers from a new microbrewery, Pivovar Patron, a jedenáctka and a desítka, started to show up at pubs and some events, already with branded glasses, coasters and other marketing trinkets pretty well put together, according to reports. The brewery claimed to be from Čepice, a small village in South-West Bohemia. But it seemed that the facilities weren't ready yet and Richard Chodora at Pivni.info wondered where the beer was actually brewed . So far, nothing strange. Microbreweries that claim to be from a specific place that has no brewery, at least not yet, aren't new; Pivovar Malešov is a good example, and there's one, Pivo Starosta , that's from a town tha...

For her thirty-tenth birthday, my wife had decided that having a party at home was a lot more hassle than she could be arsed with. Instead, she said she wanted to go on a day-trip, just the three of us (plus the dog). The place had to be somewhere close enough, where we hadn't been before—at least not with our daughter—and where we could do something other than sitting all day at a pub (much to my chagrin). Prachovské Skály checked all the boxes. This national park in Český Ráj, near Jičín, is a bit over an hour and a half away by car from where we live; we had been there once, but almost 10 years ago, with my parents in law (not what I would call a basketful of fun), and it had a few other interesting spots nearby. It was raining when I got up early in the morning, and the forecast for the rest of the day wasn't encouraging. However, by the time the rest of the family had woken up, the sun was politely telling the clouds to bugger-off, and the weather ended up being almo...

There is one massive disadvantage about being a self-published author, you're limited to writing in your free time. It doesn't matter how passionate you're about your project, it will eventually have to take second place to the stuff that pays the bills (and, if you have a family and/or anything resembling a social life, to that as well). It's true that you don't have any contractual deadlines to meet, but you still want to get that thing out, perhaps because you want to start working on another project—as it is my case—or simply because of pride and ego (which is also my case). When I started work on the 2nd edition of “The Pisshead's Pub Guide”, I set myself a 2nd half of May deadline. The first part—the introductory sections—went really well, but I hit a bit of a wall when I was set to start with the crawls; first, with finding time to do the research, and then to actually writing the bloody things—the new ones and the updates to all the rest, because they...

I swear to you, I've looked everywhere, I've even asked my neighbours! But I couldn't find a single fuck to give about the latest sexism in beer brouhaha that had some people almost frothing at their virtual mouths a few days ago. Is not that I don't believe there is sexism in the brewing industry. There is, and there is racism, xenophobia and homophobia, and abuse of power, and greed, and hypocrisy, and cuntness. Just like there is everywhere in our societies, unfortunately. The thing is that I can't be arsed with this culture of outrage. The way I see it, many, if not most, controversies these days are hashtag driven, blown out of proportion—if not fabricated—by political correctness (that enemy of free speech), the 24-hour news cycle, the internet, and by people who, I suspect, get a kick about being offended. Or not, I don't care. I've got other more important and urgent things to gripe about than the imagery breweries use for their marketing, or wh...

Gimmicks. They are a staple of (not only) the brewing industry, at all levels. Macro brewers have their special edition labels/cans, usually in sets, celebrating an event or tied to something they happen to be sponsoring. But it's the smaller breweries who have elevated the gimmick to almost an art form. They come in all shapes and sizes: there was this beer that tried to profit from an event the brewers opposed; beers that claim to be brewed according to some ancient recipe, even if said recipe isn't much more than a list of ingredients that were probably used to make beer and lot conjecture; beers made with animal parts or with a product that's passed through the digestive tract of an animal—excrement, by another name—and a bunch of other weird ingredients. There are also the collaborations, the manufactured scarcity, the brown paper bag events and anything that claims to be the -est, among others, too numerous to list. We have also beers that are gimmicks to cosmic ...

There was a time, a few years years ago, when it seemed that Statorpramen was improving. It was back when the brand from Smíchov had been made the flaghsip of a bunch of Eastern European breweries a Belgian investment fund had bought from ABIB, and named Starbev. It didn't last too long. In 2012, Starbev was sold to Molson-Coors and those days are now gone. If they existed at all. My impression might have been a product of wishful thinking, or of drinking the beer in one of those where-and-whens that make everything taste good. Whatever. The thing is that today I find myself in agreement with Pivní Recenze's review of Staropramen Světlý . The closing comment on the other hand. Well... According to Moro, the author Staropramen je českou dvojkou na trhu – toto dosti vypovídá o pivní kultuře v našem státě. (Staropramen is second on the Czech market – this says enough about the beer culture in our country). Really? If Staropramen says that much about Czech beer culture,...