New Albany is a state of mind … but whose? Since 2004, we’ve been observing the contemporary scene in this slowly awakening old river town. If it’s true that a pre-digital stopped clock is right twice a day, when will New Albany learn to tell time?
Showing posts with label Pilsner Urquell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pilsner Urquell. Show all posts
Originally from California, Evan is a long-term resident of Prague, where he writes and researches travel, food, and drink, mostly for the New York Times, as well as other publications. He generally covers central and eastern Europe, but also places like England, Italy, France, and Switzerland.
No other European locale has impacted me in quite the same way as the country now known as Czechia.
Next morning after breakfast I embarked on my orientation stroll in the nearby woods, returning to find a dirt-smudged and grinning Uncle Vlasta waiting for me, fresh from a session in the garden. He held up two oversized brown earthenware pitchers and motioned for me to follow him.
We exited the front gate and walked along the rutted dirt road, our ultimate purpose lost to me owing to our language differences. After a quarter-mile or so, we came to a battered, 1930s-era building clad in chipped stucco, residing in the shade of old, leafy hardwoods. It stood next to the terminus of a single branch rail line, one that seemed to exist solely for use by the many holiday weekenders in the vicinity.
It became clear that the structure tripled as railway ticket office, grocery store … and pub. Spying the tap inside, it made perfect sense to have a creamy draft lager and quench my thirst after the morning walk, but as an inexperienced American accustomed to cans and bottles, I still couldn’t quite fathom why we’d lugged the two big pitchers along.
Uncle Vlasta chatted with the friendly barman, who began filling them with cool beer for the journey back. Or, growlers the old-fashioned way. Some of the liquid didn’t make the trip home.
Imagine that.
Evan Rail's words and photos by Michael Kiser in a story about the Czech brewery called Pivovar Kout na Šumavě (coat nah shoe-ma-vyeh) summarizes just about everything that ever spoke to me about this part of Europe.
It's ironic that my pal Bluegill posted the link on Facebook, because at roughly the same time I received an e-mail from Starlight Distribution asking for Kout na Šumavě pre-orders, as a batch of kegs are coming in June from Shelton Brothers, the brewery's American importer.
... Beyond the forest legends, the brewery has its own weird stories: its lagering cellars were carved underneath a church where a blind beggar foretold the future to Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia Charles IV in 1362. Even the crumbling brewery walls are noteworthy: they were partly built with stones and Gothic arches recovered from the ruined castle of Rýzmberk, which had been sacked by the Swedes in 1641. Supposedly the thick brewery walls had also hidden the ancient brewing log that gave Kout its secret recipe.
When a group of writers—myself included—traveled out to Kout, I remember explaining why I had my doubts about the book, and why I tell people I’m not sure it exists today: mostly because Czech beer isn’t about recipes. A good Czech Světlý Ležák is usually pretty close to what homebrewers refer to as a SMaSH, a beer made with a single malt (100% pilsner) and a single hop (100% Žatecký poloraný červeňák, otherwise known as Saaz). It’s brewed with a double or triple decoction mash, fermented cool with a Saaz strain of Lager yeast at 7-11º Celsius (45-52° Fahrenheit), then conditioned at close to freezing for one to three months. That’s the recipe.
These kegs are on the pricey side, but damn it, we only live once. We need choices like this in downtown New Albany, and I'll try to keep half-liters as reasonable as possible. If necessary, five or six of us will drink all of it, the way we used to, even if Kevin's no longer here to carry the weight of two men.
There is other news. Diligent readers may recall some months ago when I spoke of installing a side-pull tap for Pilsner Urquell draft at Pints&union.
... Na Parkánu is the flagship pub for Pilsner Urquell in the brewery’s hometown of Pilsen, Czech Republic, and it’s worth noting that side-pull taps are used in all of Pilsner Urquell’s high-end European tank bars, which serve an unpasteurized version of the classic pale Lager from massive tanks instead of standard kegs. Stateside, side-pull faucets are also used for many important Pilsner Urquell accounts, often sitting next to the traditional beer taps pouring American craft beers.
Bryan Panzica is a national rep for Pilsner Urquell in the U.S. who installs side-pull faucets and trains bar staff to use them on a daily basis. (He got his job after coming in second, by just one point, in the international finals of a Pilsner Urquell tapping competition in the Czech Republic.) I ask him to describe the difference between a traditional beer tap in the States and side-pull faucet from the Czech Republic.
“An American faucet is an on-off switch. It’s either on or it’s off. That’s it,” Panzica responds. “The side-pour faucet is more like a dimmer switch. You can get various degrees of foam. If you open the faucet 15 degrees, you’ll get straight foam, but if you open it 90 degrees, you get straight beer.”
I felt it prudent to delay taking this step until the Midwest's most powerful wholesaler finally got around to ensuring we wouldn't run out of Pilsner Urquell kegs -- which took only six months of patience on my part.
Now we'll be getting the side pull done, then learning all over again how to pour a beer the right way. It's yet to be seen if anyone will want a Mlìko, but who knows? It makes as much or better sense than milkshake IPAs.
Residents of Czechia drink the most beer per capita of any nation on Earth. Its residents gave the world pilsner. And when beer fans in Prague order a cold one, they aren’t just tasked with choosing favorite brew—they can select their preferred pouring method, as well. Mlìko, or milk beer, is a style that renders a whole beer white and foamy, resembling a tall glass of milk.
Normally I'm not prone to hyperbole, but I'll make an exception in the case of Pilsner Urquell.
While Joe Phillips and the boys were busting their buns at Pints&union with the Harvest Homecoming crowds, I was lurking behind the scenes, gaining some valuable yardage toward a few of our beer program goals.
Among these are access to a broader range of Fuller's, both on draft and in bottles; Christmas specialty pre-orders; and prospects for the "three pour" Pilsner Urquell draft set-up in the opening video.
As for the latter, all due credit to our Monarch/World Class sales rep Joe Underwood for getting the ball rolling. We both love Pilsner Urquell, and it's a natural fit for the beer program.
From the moment Joe mentioned it, my mind has been fixed on Pilsner Urquell. It remains a core comfort beer for me, and a love affair that stretches all the way back to 1982, when Big Dave Pelham introduced me to the world's original Pilsner.
On the topic of originality -- we know this beer by its German language name, which translates as "coming from the original source in Pilsen" -- it should come as no surprise that Pilsner Urquell's background has been subject to a degree of mythologizing.
Evan Rail, a Californian maintaining long-term residence in Prague, has written extensively about Czech beer in general, and Plzeňský Prazdroj (the beer's trademark name in Czech) in particular.
There’s something bizarre about a beer with a groundbreaking 175-year history that has to go around introducing itself.
“The most difficult thing is that the brand’s awareness is just really low,” says David Schmid, director of high-end imports for Tenth and Blake, about Pilsner Urquell, one of his company’s premier brands. “It’s a great beer. It’s got a great story. But very few people know about the beer and know the story.”
Schmid is talking about the situation in the U.S., of course, far from Pilsner Urquell’s homeland of the Czech Republic, but you’d still think that most Americans wouldn’t need an explainer for a brewery that gave its name both to a type of beer and a kind of malt, not to mention the traditional fluted Pilsner glass. Pilsner Urquell was being imported to the U.S. by 1873, three years before Eberhard Anheuser and Adolphus Busch launched their American Budweiser, and it had become the best-selling imported beer in the U.S. by the time Prohibition darkened our taverns in 1920 ...
Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of Rail's stellar sleuthing last year, when I finally got around to writing about my European travels in 1987.
These wanderings included an abortive attempt to visit the brewery during a day trip from Prague; communism wasn't very conducive to spontaneous decision-making, although I've made it inside on two occasions since the Velvet Revolution.
Following is a reprint of my account of our deterred pilgrimage in 1987. It was an epochal day nonetheless, and is best accompanied by Antonín Dvořák's Slavonic dances, which in my mind always will be synonymous with my passage through the Czech countryside.
For as long we’d been talking about visiting Czechoslovakia, Barrie and I had considered only two firm itinerary prerequisites. Prague obviously landed at the top of the chart. Perhaps less easy to understand at first glance was the city of Plzeň (or Pilsen), 65 miles southwest of Prague, with a present-day population of 178,000.
As a recorded settlement, Plzeň goes back to the year 976. The city remained Catholic during the Hussite wars and became an increasingly important trading center on the route to Germany. In 1869, the founding of the Škoda Works kicked off an era of rapid industrialization, which made Plzeň one of the arsenals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
All those Škoda automobiles we saw in Czechoslovakia? They were manufactured in Plzeň, but we weren’t gearheads, and preferred to take the train, not drive, because drunk driving isn’t good, and our plan for Plzeň involved drinking a great deal of Pilsner Urquell beer -- or as it was known in Czechoslovakia, Plzeňský Prazdroj.
The very word “Pilsner,” as it has come to English speakers, is both an adjective and an appellation: Beer from Plzeň. Obviously, beer has been brewed in Plzeň for centuries, though the current Pilsner Urquell brewery dates from 1842.
The story goes something like this: Certain families in Plzeň had been granted brewing rights during medieval times, and this functioned as a monopoly of sorts, with no incentive to improve. Consequently, the quality of beer in the city deteriorated during the early 1800s, ironically at the very same time as modern brewing techniques were being harnessed to the scientific method elsewhere in Europe – significantly, in nearby Vienna and Bavaria.
In Plzeň, it gradually dawned on the diverse stakeholders that the spirit of the age, and the “higher tech” direction being traveled by beer and brewing science, suggested a pooling of resources to achieve better quality and competitiveness. The Pilsner Urquell brewery was capitalized and born from this revelation, at an indisputably ideal juncture.
Modern malting processes now yielded consistent, pale malts. The water in Plzeň was soft, and hops grew in abundance nearby. The notions of selectively standardizing yeast strains and aging ("lagering") beer resulted in a mellow flavor profile. It was clear, not cloudy, and brilliant gold. Glassware was becoming affordable for all, and the color and clarity were accented by glass rather than submerged by dense ceramic or wooden mugs.
The new beer’s body was lighter and less sweet. A generous hopping rate helped make the beer crisp, and renewed the palate. Pilsner Urquell represented modernity, and became the prototype and yardstick. Soon dark, heavy beers were all but obsolete. The world wanted golden lagers brewed more or less (mostly less) like Pilsner Urquell.
Needless to say, we'd come to adore Urq, as Barrie called it.
The red star is no more.
When Barrie and I graduated from high school in 1978, Cut Rate Liquors in Jeffersonville was the only package store in Southern Indiana with a selection of imported beers. What we now categorize as craft barely existed, even in California.
Regular examinations of the wares at Cut Rate revealed the existence of exotic, unexplored modes of thinking and drinking. Most of them were golden lagers from around the world, but there also were dark lagers, British ales and even a few Belgians.
Money was tight, and sampling meant splurging. There was no source of information, apart from bottle labels and six-pack cartons. Still, every now and then we took the risk and tried a new beer. The flavors were different, and hinted at broader horizons.
In 1982, two of my good friends intervened with essential personal testimony. Both of them had "gone away" to college, to study in places less parochial than Floyd County. Larry returned to the fold singing the praises of Guinness Extra Stout, and Dave introduced me to Pilsner Urquell, then sold in four-pack cartons for a lofty $3.99 plus sales tax.
I was intrigued. I’d had Molson, Labatts and Beck’s, but what was the spicy character in Pilsner Urquell, that piquant bitterness cutting through creamy grain flavor? It was something I hadn’t experienced in Blatz. Dave wasn’t sure, but he thought it had something to do with hops. Guinness was black like coffee. It was dry, roasty and daunting in a way that defied categorization, and completely unlike any "dark" beer I’d had before.
Insight: You mean there were different sorts of dark beers, too?
These always had intrigued me, along with pumpernickel, rye and other departures from the Wonder Bread norm. Finally, liberated from the longnecks of our fathers, the notion of beer was starting to make better sense.
All I needed was a lot more money and a plane ticket.
It was left to Michael “The Beer Hunter” Jackson’s original book “World Guide to Beer” (1977), as culled from the remainder table at a mall bookshop, to become the cosmic text that wove all the threads into a coherent whole. An updated “New World Guide to Beer” was published in 1988.
Jackson offered the saga of beer as a long and fascinating one, ranging across all aspects of the human experience.
To him, beer is about science and art, farms and cities, social history, local culture and geography. It's about the places you've gone, and the ones you'd like to go. It's about different textures and flavors to match your mood, the time of day, the season, and the task at hand.
With Jackson’s book as a guide, the obscurities of these imported beer brands gradually became comprehensible. I began working at Scoreboard Liquors, a small store in New Albany, and was allowed to replicate Cut Rate’s import selection just so long as it was kept to one door of the six opening into the walk-in cooler.
Barrie and I drank bad beer often, but when the stars aligned and finances allowed, we drank better ones. My work discount helped, and after returning from my first European excursion in 1985, it became ever more difficult to return to the everyday Bud this, Miller that.
I wasn’t a snob so much as a flavor junkie.
(As an indication of the way one’s memory plays tricks, I was about to add that Jackson’s television series The Beer Hunter was an inspiration for our Ur-Quest in 1987, but it couldn’t have been. The series debuted in the UK in 1989, and in America the following year.)
---
July 15, 1987
We caught a train from Prague to Plzeň, got there well before noon, and reconnoitered. From the station, the Pilsner Urquell brewery was easy to see and smell, although we knew to inquire at the official state-run Čedok travel agency (actually established in 1920, prior to communism), which surely would be located somewhere in the center of the city.
It was. This task was accomplished in due course, and we were summarily rebuffed. No one at Čedok had the slightest interest in helping us score a brewery tour. The lone English speaker we found was exasperated; didn’t everyone on the planet know that Pilsner Urquell brewery tours only took place once a week on, well, any day except today?
It was frustrating, but this was the nature of things during Czechoslovakia’s final years of erosion prior to the Velvet Revolution in 1989. There was no benefit for a travel agency employee to go out of his way to help us; perhaps a bribe might have helped, but our lone English speaker had a very hard face, indeed.
Plan B was commenced. We walked to the Pilsner Urquell brewery and made tepid inquiries at the guard shack. No English was spoken; at least the rejection was friendlier.
For years afterward, Barrie’s version of what happened next remained consistent and only slightly exaggerated:
“We couldn’t get inside the brewery, so I went over, kissed the lock on the gate, and we went to the tavern instead.”
The forbidden city.
Fair enough. To the left of the gate was the brewery’s “official” tavern. It seemed appropriately upscale, at least in contrast to the next closest Pilsner Urquell outlet, located across the street, which was on the ground floor of a 1920s-era structure, smaller and shabbier, and alluring in a counter-intuitive way.
We opted for the well-appointed “official” brewery tap first, probably because the odors of pork and dumplings were leaking through the windows and clinging to our clothes, and we needed to eat immediately. Once inside, we admired the wooden interior and beautiful windows.
Drinking, dining and pervasive deliciousness was the result, and there even was an inadvertent floor show, showcasing the intoxicated antics of a visiting delegation of North Koreans, who were having far too much fun in a communist country that actually had drinkable beer.
It transpired that using the restroom meant passing the Czech restaurant-standard coat check desk. There were few coats to check in high summer, but full employment meant staffing irrespective of the need, and at one point when the two of us walked past, the coat check attendant addressed us and sidled over.
In a low voice, she asked if we were American, and we nodded assent. She beamed, and proceeded to tell us in passable English that she still remembered the liberation of Plzeň by General Patton’s 3rd Army at the close of WWII.
The 40th anniversary had been only two years before our visit, and she cheerfully recounted the appearance of a handful of Patton’s elderly soldiers for the city’s commemorative event.
In late 1945, US troops withdrew from Czechoslovakia, which had been determined to fall within the Soviet sphere of influence, which of course became the Iron Curtain as coined by Winston Churchill.
The coat check woman preferred to remember how nice the American G.I.s had been, helping to rebuild Plzeň in the months before being withdrawn, and frequently gifting her and other children with chocolate bars.
Before we left the premises, she surreptitiously pressed coasters and postcards into our hands, as if to pay back those favors from so long ago.
It was sincerely moving, and I’ve never forgotten her hospitality.
---
It was time for a visit to the dive bar, and as we emerged from the restaurant, things were heating up across the way.
Sadly, when I returned to Plzeň in 1989, the entire building was gone, demolished for a street widening project. Looking closely at the photo from 1987, there seem to be few signs of life in the upper three floors, so perhaps the tavern’s demise was a done deal even as we were drinking there.
At any rate, the pub with no name was a delight, and the regular crowd was shuffling in.
When Frantisek and the lads arrived, the party started. He was a cabbie playing hooky, rejecting an afternoon’s fares so he could drive himself and four of his finest friends from one tavern to the next. As long as his communism-pretend credentials were in order, it probably wouldn’t matter whether he worked or not, and if you’re not working, why not have a few beers on a lovely summer’s day?
They spoke no English and we spoke no Czech. Some German words could be shared. The longer we remained, the easier it got. Seasoned drinkers understand that communication becomes immeasurably simpler once all participants have reached the stage of “universal second beer language,” wherein thoughts and concepts expressed in otherwise indecipherable tongues suddenly make perfect sense.
Eventually Franta reckoned we needed an education in the merits of Czech rum.
Tuzemák, formerly called Tuzemský rum (English: domestic rum), is a term for a traditional Czech distilled beverage. It is a substitute good (ersatz) for true rum which is produced from sugarcane mainly in the Caribbean and Latin America. Since the 19th century, Tuzemák became one of the most popular spirits in the Czech lands.
Tuzemský is produced from potatoes or sugar beets, diluted and flavoured by various rum essences. In the 19th century similar substitutes were produced throughout the crown lands of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which had no access to tropical colonies; they were named Inländer-Rum (like Stroh in Austria, today produced from sugarcane molasses and therefore a genuine spiced rum), Domači or Čajni (Croatia) etc.
In 1987, it was simply called rum, and the less said, the better. After a couple belts of it, I undertook a laborious examination of the time, and came to a reckoning of my own: we needed to get back to Prague. As we departed, so did Franta and the gang, motoring toward the next pub on their taxi crawl.
As a final aside, a few architectural details on the brewery's exterior ...
... and the early evening return to our sports club hostel beds in Prague.
Next day, we caught the train to Munich, and a meticulously planned meet 'n' greet with our friend Bob and my cousin Don.
For as long we’d been talking about visiting Czechoslovakia, Barrie and I had considered only two firm itinerary prerequisites. Prague obviously landed at the top of the chart. Perhaps less easy to understand at first glance was the city of Plzeň (or Pilsen), 65 miles southwest of Prague, with a present-day population of 178,000.
As a recorded settlement, Plzeň goes back to the year 976. The city remained Catholic during the Hussite wars and became an increasingly important trading center on the route to Germany. In 1869, the founding of the Škoda Works kicked off an era of rapid industrialization, which made Plzeň one of the arsenals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
All those Škoda automobiles we saw in Czechoslovakia? They were manufactured in Plzeň, but we weren’t gearheads, and preferred to take the train, not drive, because drunk driving isn’t good, and our plan for Plzeň involved drinking a great deal of Pilsner Urquell beer -- or as it was known in Czechoslovakia, Plzeňský Prazdroj.
The very word “Pilsner,” as it has come to English speakers, is both an adjective and an appellation: Beer from Plzeň. Obviously, beer has been brewed in Plzeň for centuries, though the current Pilsner Urquell brewery dates from 1842.
The story goes something like this: Certain families in Plzeň had been granted brewing rights during medieval times, and this functioned as a monopoly of sorts, with no incentive to improve. Consequently, the quality of beer in the city deteriorated during the early 1800s, ironically at the very same time as modern brewing techniques were being harnessed to the scientific method elsewhere in Europe – significantly, in nearby Vienna and Bavaria.
In Plzeň, it gradually dawned on the diverse stakeholders that the spirit of the age, and the “higher tech” direction being traveled by beer and brewing science, suggested a pooling of resources to achieve better quality and competitiveness. The Pilsner Urquell brewery was capitalized and born from this revelation, at an indisputably ideal juncture.
Modern malting processes now yielded consistent, pale malts. The water in Plzeň was soft, and hops grew in abundance nearby. The notions of selectively standardizing yeast strains and aging ("lagering") beer resulted in a mellow flavor profile. It was clear, not cloudy, and brilliant gold. Glassware was becoming affordable for all, and the color and clarity were accented by glass rather than submerged by dense ceramic or wooden mugs.
The new beer’s body was lighter and less sweet. A generous hopping rate helped make the beer crisp, and renewed the palate. Pilsner Urquell represented modernity, and became the prototype and yardstick. Soon dark, heavy beers were all but obsolete. The world wanted golden lagers brewed more or less (mostly less) like Pilsner Urquell.
Needless to say, we'd come to adore Urq, as Barrie called it.
The red star is no more.
When Barrie and I graduated from high school in 1978, Cut Rate Liquors in Jeffersonville was the only package store in Southern Indiana with a selection of imported beers. What we now categorize as craft barely existed, even in California.
Regular examinations of the wares at Cut Rate revealed the existence of exotic, unexplored modes of thinking and drinking. Most of them were golden lagers from around the world, but there also were dark lagers, British ales and even a few Belgians.
Money was tight, and sampling meant splurging. There was no source of information, apart from bottle labels and six-pack cartons. Still, every now and then we took the risk and tried a new beer. The flavors were different, and hinted at broader horizons.
In 1982, two of my good friends intervened with essential personal testimony. Both of them had "gone away" to college, to study in places less parochial than Floyd County. Larry returned to the fold singing the praises of Guinness Extra Stout, and Dave introduced me to Pilsner Urquell, then sold in four-pack cartons for a lofty $3.99 plus sales tax.
I was intrigued. I’d had Molson, Labatts and Beck’s, but what was the spicy character in Pilsner Urquell, that piquant bitterness cutting through creamy grain flavor? It was something I hadn’t experienced in Blatz. Dave wasn’t sure, but he thought it had something to do with hops. Guinness was black like coffee. It was dry, roasty and daunting in a way that defied categorization, and completely unlike any "dark" beer I’d had before.
Insight: You mean there were different sorts of dark beers, too?
These always had intrigued me, along with pumpernickel, rye and other departures from the Wonder Bread norm. Finally, liberated from the longnecks of our fathers, the notion of beer was starting to make better sense.
All I needed was a lot more money and a plane ticket.
It was left to Michael “The Beer Hunter” Jackson’s original book “World Guide to Beer” (1977), as culled from the remainder table at a mall bookshop, to become the cosmic text that wove all the threads into a coherent whole. An updated “New World Guide to Beer” was published in 1988.
Jackson offered the saga of beer as a long and fascinating one, ranging across all aspects of the human experience.
To him, beer is about science and art, farms and cities, social history, local culture and geography. It's about the places you've gone, and the ones you'd like to go. It's about different textures and flavors to match your mood, the time of day, the season, and the task at hand.
With Jackson’s book as a guide, the obscurities of these imported beer brands gradually became comprehensible. I began working at Scoreboard Liquors, a small store in New Albany, and was allowed to replicate Cut Rate’s import selection just so long as it was kept to one door of the six opening into the walk-in cooler.
Barrie and I drank bad beer often, but when the stars aligned and finances allowed, we drank better ones. My work discount helped, and after returning from my first European excursion in 1985, it became ever more difficult to return to the everyday Bud this, Miller that.
I wasn’t a snob so much as a flavor junkie.
(As an indication of the way one’s memory plays tricks, I was about to add that Jackson’s television series The Beer Hunter was an inspiration for our Ur-Quest in 1987, but it couldn’t have been. The series debuted in the UK in 1989, and in America the following year.)
---
July 15, 1987
We caught a train from Prague to Plzeň, got there well before noon, and reconnoitered. From the station, the Pilsner Urquell brewery was easy to see and smell, although we knew to inquire at the official state-run Čedok travel agency (actually established in 1920, prior to communism), which surely would be located somewhere in the center of the city.
It was. This task was accomplished in due course, and we were summarily rebuffed. No one at Čedok had the slightest interest in helping us score a brewery tour. The lone English speaker we found was exasperated; didn’t everyone on the planet know that Pilsner Urquell brewery tours only took place once a week on, well, any day except today?
It was frustrating, but this was the nature of things during Czechoslovakia’s final years of erosion prior to the Velvet Revolution in 1989. There was no benefit for a travel agency employee to go out of his way to help us; perhaps a bribe might have helped, but our lone English speaker had a very hard face, indeed.
Plan B was commenced. We walked to the Pilsner Urquell brewery and made tepid inquiries at the guard shack. No English was spoken; at least the rejection was friendlier.
For years afterward, Barrie’s version of what happened next remained consistent and only slightly exaggerated:
“We couldn’t get inside the brewery, so I went over, kissed the lock on the gate, and we went to the tavern instead.”
The forbidden city.
Fair enough. To the left of the gate was the brewery’s “official” tavern. It seemed appropriately upscale, at least in contrast to the next closest Pilsner Urquell outlet, located across the street, which was on the ground floor of a 1920s-era structure, smaller and shabbier, and alluring in a counter-intuitive way.
We opted for the well-appointed “official” brewery tap first, probably because the odors of pork and dumplings were leaking through the windows and clinging to our clothes, and we needed to eat immediately. Once inside, we admired the wooden interior and beautiful windows.
Drinking, dining and pervasive deliciousness was the result, and there even was an inadvertent floor show, showcasing the intoxicated antics of a visiting delegation of North Koreans, who were having far too much fun in a communist country that actually had drinkable beer.
It transpired that using the restroom meant passing the Czech restaurant-standard coat check desk. There were few coats to check in high summer, but full employment meant staffing irrespective of the need, and at one point when the two of us walked past, the coat check attendant addressed us and sidled over.
In a low voice, she asked if we were American, and we nodded assent. She beamed, and proceeded to tell us in passable English that she still remembered the liberation of Plzeň by General Patton’s 3rd Army at the close of WWII.
The 40th anniversary had been only two years before our visit, and she cheerfully recounted the appearance of a handful of Patton’s elderly soldiers for the city’s commemorative event.
In late 1945, US troops withdrew from Czechoslovakia, which had been determined to fall within the Soviet sphere of influence, which of course became the Iron Curtain as coined by Winston Churchill.
The coat check woman preferred to remember how nice the American G.I.s had been, helping to rebuild Plzeň in the months before being withdrawn, and frequently gifting her and other children with chocolate bars.
Before we left the premises, she surreptitiously pressed coasters and postcards into our hands, as if to pay back those favors from so long ago.
It was sincerely moving, and I’ve never forgotten her hospitality.
---
It was time for a visit to the dive bar, and as we emerged from the restaurant, things were heating up across the way.
Sadly, when I returned to Plzeň in 1989, the entire building was gone, demolished for a street widening project. Looking closely at the photo from 1987, there seem to be few signs of life in the upper three floors, so perhaps the tavern’s demise was a done deal even as we were drinking there.
At any rate, the pub with no name was a delight, and the regular crowd was shuffling in.
When Frantisek and the lads arrived, the party started. He was a cabbie playing hooky, rejecting an afternoon’s fares so he could drive himself and four of his finest friends from one tavern to the next. As long as his communism-pretend credentials were in order, it probably wouldn’t matter whether he worked or not, and if you’re not working, why not have a few beers on a lovely summer’s day?
They spoke no English and we spoke no Czech. Some German words could be shared. The longer we remained, the easier it got. Seasoned drinkers understand that communication becomes immeasurably simpler once all participants have reached the stage of “universal second beer language,” wherein thoughts and concepts expressed in otherwise indecipherable tongues suddenly make perfect sense.
Eventually Franta reckoned we needed an education in the merits of Czech rum.
Tuzemák, formerly called Tuzemský rum (English: domestic rum), is a term for a traditional Czech distilled beverage. It is a substitute good (ersatz) for true rum which is produced from sugarcane mainly in the Caribbean and Latin America. Since the 19th century, Tuzemák became one of the most popular spirits in the Czech lands.
Tuzemský is produced from potatoes or sugar beets, diluted and flavoured by various rum essences. In the 19th century similar substitutes were produced throughout the crown lands of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which had no access to tropical colonies; they were named Inländer-Rum (like Stroh in Austria, today produced from sugarcane molasses and therefore a genuine spiced rum), Domači or Čajni (Croatia) etc.
In 1987, it was simply called rum, and the less said, the better. After a couple belts of it, I undertook a laborious examination of the time, and came to a reckoning of my own: we needed to get back to Prague. As we departed, so did Franta and the gang, motoring toward the next pub on their taxi crawl.
As a final aside, a few architectural details on the brewery's exterior ...
... and the early evening return to our sports club hostel beds in Prague.
Next day, we caught the train to Munich, and a meticulously planned meet 'n' greet with our friend Bob and my cousin Don.
At some point in the evening on Saturday, a sweaty quartet of exhausted Krakow sidetrippers returned to the Hotel Nowa Praga in Warsaw, just in time for the official end-of-tour departure party. Only one indelible memory remains of this event.
Among us was a college-aged San Franciscan of Polish extraction, who'd devoted time during our absence in Krakow to exploring family connections. During the course of his wanderings, whether by design or happenstance, natives had undertaken to tell him the story of Jerzy Popiełuszko, whose grave he visited.
Jerzy Popiełuszko (Polish pronunciation: [ˈjɛʐɨ popʲɛˈwuʂkɔ]; 14 September 1947 – 19 October 1984) was a Polish Roman Catholic priest who became associated with the opposition Solidarity trade union in communist Poland. He was murdered in 1984 by three agents of Służba Bezpieczeństwa (Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), who were shortly thereafter tried and convicted of the murder.
I recall the two of us talking at length during the party about the deep and sudden impact of Popiełuszko's legacy on my fellow traveler, and what it meant in the context of Polish freedom. Combined with my own morose reaction to Auschwitz earlier in the day, it may have been the most sober drunken evening of them all.
On Sunday afternoon, most of the group departed by bus for the airport to return to Copenhagen. I hadn't arrived in Moscow with the group, and I wouldn't be leaving with it. Barrie and I had tickets for the overnight train to Prague, and a there were a few hours left to kill.
A few of our tour mates also remained on hand; like us, they had planned differing exits. Our Polish tour guide Bozena was around, too, and so the stage was set for a carefree late afternoon and early evening. One by one, goodbyes, farewells and amens were said, until only two Hoosiers remained.
Dazed by meal of spaghetti and 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 unfazed at the prospect of the long trip ahead, Barrie and I stood alone in the shadow of the monstrous Stalinist Gothic Palace of Culture in downtown Warsaw.
We bowed to the edifice, and walked to the central train station to hop the sole overnight non-express to Czechoslovakia.
These being the days of waning Communism, our jovial mood couldn’t have lasted very long. Although our essential documents – passports, Czechoslovak visas, train tickets and couchette reservations – were in order, we had neglected to pack food and drink for the journey.
It was Sunday night. All the stores were closed, and mini-marts were in short supply in Communist Poland in 1987. Oddly, convenience had yet to be written into the five-year plan.
My backpack and Barrie's duffel bag 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 złoty, 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 Praha hlavní nádraží 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 far outskirts of the city. It would be several hours before we could check into the room, and probably another hour to get there.
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 at last, pubs were in abundance.
After two weeks in the Polish and Soviet lands, where vodka reigned supreme, we were in Bohemia, the Euphrates of European lager brewing tradition, and the home of the original Pilsner beer.
We resolved to walk a just 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.
A garden variety sight during our walk.
At length, having paused briefly two hours earlier for sausages dispensed from a tiny streetside window, we glimpsed the familiar green script of Pilsner Urquell adorning the façade of a faded, orange-and-pink-painted building.
Fate at Two Cats.
The final steps were the hardest. We passed through the stout wooden doors of U Dvou koček (At Two Cats), 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.
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.
Ominously, the alcohol went straight to my head ... and we still had to find our lodgings.
Czech for Pilsner Urquell; a 1987 teaser. Photos to come.
The last time I had the pleasure of visiting the Czech Republic was 2006. That's a long time.
My most recent visit to Plzen, home of Pilsner Urquell?
Probably 1999; almost two decades. As I've been digilizing my 1980s-era slides, there has been plenty of opportunity to ruminate about the incredible changes that have occurred in a place like Plzen since 1987.
Back then the country was called Czechoslovakia, and it was Communist. In spite of this, or maybe because of it, the beer was out of this world. Pair it with pork and dumplings, and repeat as often as possible.
In July, 1987 Barrie and I took the train to Plzen from Prague, found the brewery, and enjoyed a leisurely afternoon with multiple portions of the nectar, first in the former brewery tap outside the factory gate, then a few yards away in another pub long since supplanted by a roadway improvement project.
To me, it seems like yesterday. At the first stop, the coat check attendant told us she remembered the arrival of Patton's 3rd Army in Plzen during WWII. At the second, we were joined by a cab driver, who had chucked work for the day and was ferrying his buddies from pub to pub, drinking with them. None of them spoke English, and we spoke no Czech.
Rather, beer was spoken.
I watched quite a few Pilsner Urquells being poured that day, and would continue to do so in the years to come, hence the point of today's digression.
I've been vaguely aware that the Pilsner Urquell international distribution effort of late has been emphasizing the "three pours" draft approach. I'm all aboard, and want to learn more.
If my pub sanctuary project-in-development gets off the ground, this will be my daily classic house lager -- and make no mistake, Asahi as Urquell's new owner ranks nowhere near AB-InBev's level of multinational swinishness.
Besides, there'll be just a few changeable taps, and frequent excuses to pour Prima Pils, Goodwood's Louisville Lager and other beers in a similar range. What there won't be is a spinning wheel rotational approach.
As ever, I digress.
All I can ever remember ever seeing during all those times traveling in the Czech lands are were faucets pulled up, down or sideways to full bore as numerous glasses were filled with half-beer, half-foam, and then topped off. It seemed a reflection of having just one or two beers on tap, and numerous thirsty customers.
It occurs to me that I may be be missing something. Most readers already know that while I was in the beer biz for many years, it's been a while since I paid very much attention to a topic like this, even though there was a time when the Public House was the top Pilsner Urquell draft account in Indiana (if memory serves).
In this ongoing process of rediscovering bits and piece of life that were shunted aside during my should-have-known-better, trench warfare craft beer phase, I'm curious how long the Pilsner Urquell three-pour approach has been a factor.
Twenty years, maybe? Ten?
Or was it always a fact, just honored in the breach during Communist times, perhaps owing to the overall degradation?
Maybe I wasn't paying attention at all. It wouldn't be the first instance. If you know anything about this topic, please share it with me. As noted, it is my earnest wish to pour Pilsner Urquell again some day, hopefully soon.
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