Brazilian Beer

Last Friday I caught up with some friends over an all you can eat feast of Brazilian BBQ meat. As always, a suitable beverage was required to cut through the fat and blend with the char/caramelised meat flavours. There were a few American Style IPA's on the menu which looked interesting, but a bitter malt monster wasn't going to cut it. I wanted something sharp, cold and carbonated so I opted for the only Brazilian offering - Palma Louca (4.5% abv). The beer was pretty good, and a wise choice to be paired with the cuisine available. The food was awesome as well and I highly recommend hitting up Braza in Leichardt for some top nosh.

Maltese Style

I have just spent the last 5 days in Malta. As a country Malta has been of strategic military importance to the British Empire for a long time. It's proximity to both Europe and Africa make it a great jumping point for invasions of many countries. Malta is also an underdeveloped shithole with hobbies such as picking up dog shit (as illustrated by the instructional sign in the pic to the left). It is an odd place, but they do have good beer.

The first exposure I had to Maltese beer was not a good one. Surely a beer called Hopleaf Pale Ale is going to be good right? Well no. It was tasteless and dull and I refuse to talk about it further. On the other hand I did find some excellent brews. The most common and widely available beer is Cisk (4.9% abv). This is an excellent continental lager in the pilsner style and actually tastes pretty good from a can and is also available in proper real keg form. It is insanely cheap and can be had for about €1.50 a pint in most establishments or for 65 euro cents a can in supermarkets.

Other noteworthy Maltese beers are Farsons Lacto Milk Stout (3.8% abv) which is a thick treacle like milk stout which is really nice. It doesn't have that thinly veiled roast with chemical aftertaste that other milk stouts seem to have. It's a wonderful beast and is balanced just right - I wish I had picked some up to bring back to the UK! 1565 is another Maltese lager in the style of Cisk, but is brewed to celebrate St Johns victory in the year of it's namesake. This beer is OK, but not as clean and crisp as Cisk. I only ever came across cans of the stuff so it may be rare or just brewed for the public holiday (which happens to be the 28th June, while I was there). You can get most of the usual euroswill suspects there such as Heineken, Carlsberg etc but you can also get German and Czech beers such as Lowenbrau and Budvar insanely cheap at under 50 euro cents a bottle. Anyhow in terms of beer this pretty much sums up my experiences in Malta. I only went there for some guaranteed sun, and upon my return I find out that I missed a heatwave in London and it was actually warmer here! Plenty of good boozing coming up this week though with a session in the Gunmakers locked in tomorrow and The White Horse and Ealing beer fests coming up, I am staring down a boozy weekend. It will certainly make packing interesting!

Pub or Refectory?

On Friday evening, my lovely wife and I headed out for a couple of drinks at the Ruby Grand in Hammersmith before enjoying a great meal at Saigon Saigon on King Street. As the weather was pretty good on Friday, I enjoyed a nice pint of Kronenbourg 1664 at the RG and half a bottle of New Zealand Sauvingon Blanc with dinner. On our trip back through Hammersmith on our way back to Brook Green, my wife had an acute case of the dreaded FBS (full bladder syndrome). To alleviate the pain discomfort we ducked into The Plough and Harrow, W6's very own JDW house. It had been a long time since I had set foot in this place and not much had changed. Basically it reminds me more of the UCL refectory rather than a pub and was full of old geezers and drunks. While waiting patiently outside the ladies toilets for my wife to sort herself out I took a quick look into the kitchen. Row upon row of industrial microwave ovens were visible with two kitchen monkeys reheating as fast as possible. Luckily I was in and out of the shithole as fast as possible, but I am still getting flashbacks. You really do get what you pay for.

BTW - the photos didn't really turn out right, but you get the idea.

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Kraków, piwo i czekolada Powlekany Śliwki

On Saturday morning I awoke at 4.15am with a massive hangover. That pint of Hooky Bitter must have caused it, I explained to my not so sympathetic wife. Anyhow we managed to get ourselves ready into a mini cab and out to Gatwick to get our dawn service BA shuttle to Krakow, Poland. I have to admit, based on my encounters with the Polish drunks of Brook Green I was expecting to see lots of nutters and drunks drinking tramp juice out of coffee mugs in a third world setting. Fortunately I was disappointed, but relieved to find that Krakow is an amazing unspoiled European city which is bustling with culture and people having a good time. The main market square is lined with chic cafes and restaurants serving generous portions of excellent food and beer at what I consider to be 1970's prices. Krakow to me seemed similar to how people describe Prague and Budapest ten years ago before they became crowded with busloads of tourists.

In terms of beer I had all the usual suspects that you find in your off licence. Okacim, Tyskie and my personal favourite Zywiec (pronounced Ja-vice).

There are two Zywiec beers that are widely available, the Pilsner style lager (5.6% abv) and the Baltic Porter, which weighs in at a hefty 9.3% abv. I got pretty tanked up after drinking a pint of Okacim Mocne, 2 pints of Zywiec Pilsner and 3 pints of Zywiec Porter. This was a grand prelude to seeing poor Ricky Hatton get the stuffing knocked out of him.

Besides getting smashed on super strength baltic porter (which is really good), the only thing of note that I can think of now was the food. I have included a picture of my pork knuckle below. It was soft skinned (not so good), but covered in an awesome BBQ sauce on top of a bed of fried kraut. Nice.

A bit of catch up

Life has been hectic lately and my regular lunchtime posts have become ever more irregular. Luckily, today is ticker Tuesday so I can eliminate my backlog in pretty much one bludgeoning swoop. To keep it interesting I won't go on about my pub binges with Peter and Co. at The Gunmakers, or my adventures at The Parr's Head and The Havelock- they were standard pissup affairs.

Interesting beers;

Thornbridge Halcyon (7.7% abv) - this hop monster IPA uses fresh green hops as opposed to dried stable hops. Judging by the hop haze this beer had, I will assume there were a lot of hops added as well. I won't go into too many details, but Darren over at Blog o'Beer posted some good stuff here.

Dorothy Goodbody's Golden Ale (4.2% abv) - This gem from the Wye Valley Brewery has a strong wheat malt taste which I don't really appreciate. It's an easy quaffing beer though and I have a bottle of the stout at home still to get through which should be more to my taste.

Casablanca Premium Lager Beer (5.0% abv) - The wife and I met up with some friends in Kew and went to a new Moroccan restaurant (Tangine) that has just set up shop. It was a warm day and I had worked through a couple of pints of Staropramen and a summer ale from Hog's Back before getting into this beer. It's your standard malty premium lager affair and probably the tastiest alcoholic beverage to come out of Morocco. The food was pretty good too. I had the lamb shank.

Sam Smith's Pure Brewed Lager (5% abv) - One of the best lagers brewed in the UK. This beer really suits the the warmer weather and went down a treat. I should drink this more when I visit Sam Smith's pubs. I have suffered with and been let down by Old Brewery Bitter for way too long, and I usually opt for Alpine Lager in the lager stakes. Could this be the most under-rated beer in Britain?

Ben Nevis Organic 80/- (4% abv) - A beer I really enjoyed.... malty and full of melanoids with minimal hopping this beer went down a treat. I am not really that big a fan of 80/- beers in general, but like any beer style when you get a good interpretation of the style you get a good beer. Anyhow, it's brewed by Bridge of Allan Brewery somewhere in Scotland.

Well that sums up the most interesting beers from the last week. Instead of the usual Nokia quality photography, I have offered you the reader a nice collage for the first time ever. I also went to Krakow over the bank holiday weekend so I guess I will be ramming the virtues of Polish beer down your neck for the remainder of the week!

I am also running a poll and I would like to solicit your opinions.

Is Lager Expensive?

I recently blogged about how some of CAMRA's marketing towarsd lager was factually misleading. I think it was;

"lager is weak in flavour and usually overpriced"

When I saw this display in Tesco recently I couldn't help myself. Compared to nearly £2 a bottle for 'premium bottled ale', I consider a crate of 24 Stella tins (9L in total) a steal. Please note that I did not take Tesco up on their offer...

I'm Trapped

For reasons I will not go into, I am trapped at home today - a prisoner in my small flat. I'm not going to let my situation get in the way of the greatness that is ticker Tuesday though!
To kick start the beer diary week the wife and I headed out to a local tapas bar in Brook Green. The food was pretty good and they had a few different Spanish lagers on the menu. I ordered a Mahou which is as good an example as any. I had this last year when I was Barcelona and in the video attached to the post is one of the best beer adverts I have ever seen. You can check it out here if that post predates your readership to the blog. Anyhow on Friday evening a few of the lads from the office headed to 'The Apple Tree' for a few after work pints. They had Bath Gem on and we proceeded to drink through the remains of the cask. They then put Fisherman's Tackle (4.1% abv) on which was a better beer than the Gem in my opinion. I can't find any information about the beer at all online and the pump clip was just some writing in chalk. Can anyone fill in the blanks here?
On Saturday evening I cracked open a bottle of UBU Amber Ale from purity Brewing Co. This US style amber ale was a little underwhelming after the Flying Goose I had from the same brewery last week, but still a nice drop. My beer drinking on Saturday was limited to just the one bottle of beer as I helped the missus finish off a few bottles of wine that have been loitering around for a while.
Sunday was the day of the hop monsters. My usual "Come Dine With Me" session was halted due to our television reception going down leaving me with only books and my wife's company for entertainment. Luckily I had a bottle of Mikkeller stateside IPA in the fridge. This 7% abv US style IPA from Denmark is extreme. It has to be over 100 IBU's of pure bitterness and makes your teeth feel like they are dissolving. Because of the lack of balance I didn't really enjoy this one - too hardcore my session drinking sensibilities. To make matters worse, I followed it with a bottle of Port Brewing 2nd Anniversary which is a 9.5% abv American Barleywine. This over the top hop monster was bordering on the point of undrinkable. It was thick, chewy and cloying and tasted like I had been chewing on a bunch of pine needles. I guess for some that would be ideal, but it's not really my cup of tea.
Anyhow that's pretty much the story of my drinking for the last week. Kind of lame really, but some interesting ticks there if you get excited by that sort of thing.
The next instalment of ticker Tuesday will be in a fortnights time (that's two weeks for you Yank's). It should be a good one as I am off to New York on Friday morning. I have a list of things I want to do while there (including Blind Tiger and Brooklyn Brewery) but can anyone fill me in on any other must do attractions that have to be on my list?

Today is Ticker Tuesday

Today is ticker Tuesday. Basically in this post I will cover some of the beers I have had over the last week or so. I was reviewing the photos from my phone and realised that I had more than just a couple.

Last Thursday night I went for a drink with Mike, a guy I used to work with. He suggested 'The Castle' just off High Holborn. I had not been there since I was served a dodgy pint. Anyway not much has changed, the place still has 9 handpumps and is chock full of people drinking Peroni. Mike has become allergic to beer lately and has moved onto cider, which left me to hold up the fort in the beer department. I first got my teeth into a pint of Bushy's Helmsman which is a 4.5% copper coloured bitter that had lost most of it's condition and was starting to taste a little ordinary. Obviously this one has not been a big seller! I forced it down as technically while it was past it's best, it was in no way stale.
Next on my list was Titanic White Star (4.8% abv), which is a hoppy golden coloured bitter and was in very good condition. I didn't tempt fate and squeezed in a few of these and didn't bother to see what else was on offer.

Friday was a pretty quiet day in the office so a few of the lads headed down to Ye Olde Mitre for a pint over lunch. The inner ticker came out and I gravitated towards the guest ale which was Pirates Gold (4.0% abv) from Cornwall's Wooden Hand Brewery. It's funny how you can go to a region and not find any of the local beers, but head back to London and they are everywhere! The beer is a fruity bitter and suited the afternoon which was cold. I still think the old Mitre is over rated. I look forward to returning once Fuller's take the reigns.

After work on Friday (ok, well it was 3.45pm), a colleague of mine Gareth and I headed down the street to The Gunmakers for a couple of beers. It really was a slow day. I won't go into too much detail as I think I have covered all Jeff's offerings before. Anyhow I had a pint of Batemans XXXB and a pint of TT Landlord. I think I will stick with the Landlord in Future as I am not that big a fan of the Bateman's and I had a pint of Harvey's Best the week before and I am not really a huge fan of that either. I like the pub though and it seems to be busy nearly all the time now with a solid set of regulars, some of whom I am getting to know.

On Saturday I was conned into seeing 'Marley and Me' with the missus. Well I'm not totally whipped and there is a plan in place here. I go and see one chick film, this builds me up some points so we can see Terminator Salvation, Fast and the Furious 4 or X-Men Wolverine next time we go. After the movie I raided my beer collection (I have a rather large stash of bottles) and enjoyed some Saison 1900 and a bottle of Sierra Nevada Stout while watching 'Come Dine with Me'. Watching foodie TV had me craving for some decent nosh, but our pantry was bare. Rather than do a Tesco run, we went to a local Vietmanese joint 'Saigon Saigon' where I enjoyed not only very good Vietmanese cuisine, but a couple of bottles of Saigon Export. This is an interesting beer that has only a very mild bitterness and a subtle honey like malt sweetness that works well with the caramelised flavours and spices in the food. A good general food pairing.

Sunday was Boat Race day and we headed down to Furnival Gardens to watch the race. We got down there, grabbed some food and staked a position on the barrier wall. After about ten minutes it started to rain - not fun. The wind also briefly picked up and it was freezing cold so we headed back to the flat to watch the race on TV. A much smarter option. Back at the flat I inspected my beer stash and selected two Bath Ales - the Gem and Barnstormer. Either my palette is loosing it's touch or these beers are basically the same. Come to think of it, the Gem was slightly more fruity. Still nice beers to drink while watching the race. I don't really have any allegiance to either of the two schools as I didn't go to either. Plus I don't like the religious origins of OxBridge and prefer the secular nature of UCL where I do have an affiliation being a former staff member. Putting religion aside the last beer I had on Sunday was Mad Goose Pale Ale from Purity Brewing Co. This beer was nice, but had an abrupt wheat malt taste that I don't like. I prefer all barley malt beers, but I liked the hop character. I have a bottle of Purity's Amber Ale in the fridge at home which I will eventually get around to.

Anyhow I apologise for the congested and disjointed post. Maybe I am still a ticker at heart?

Clever Marketing or just plain Bullshit?

Recently whilst at a work function I was issued a beer brewed by Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat called Vedett, which is marketed a 'blonde' when it really was just an ordinary megaswill lager. Not that there is anything wrong with mainstream lager as such, those products serve their purpose, but I couldn't help but feel mislead by the label. Surely it should be labelled as a lager? Belgian Blonde is a beer style unto itself and in general is a strong golden coloured ale.
Anyhow I have been duped again, this time by a brewing megacorp. I have had Jupiler on draught on many occasions and I have always appreciated it as a pale lager. I recently received a bottle of Jupiler Blonde (5.2% abv) and I automatically assumed that it was going to be a Belgian style blonde ale. I even sourced a Leffe style glass to enjoy this beer in. You could say that I was more than a little disappointed when the beer I poured out was actually just the same generic pale lager that I have had many times before. I admit it, I have become the latest victim of the ruthlessness that its AB-InBev's clever marketing department. It seems that they spin more shit than I do, but at least they get paid for it........
Maybe it's time for a career change?

Spring is near

Whilst walking to the tube station this morning, I noticed that the bulb flowers have started to bloom and all the trees have new buds starting to form. The tree outside my office window which I watched die back only a few months ago is now covered with the white buds of the new bloom. I am not a green thumb by any means, but for some strange reason I get excited (and no not sexually) by all this. I think there are a number of reasons. The first being that I like that things get bigger and better over time. Spring brings a feeling of renewal which leads to anticipation of good times and warmer weather. Of course this is an illusion as come mid-September everything dies and it gets cold and miserable again. One type of plant interests me more than others. This is the hop plant, the all important grass which seasons and preserves beer. I can visualize it now, thousands of rhizomes awakening all over Kent, Europe and North America with their buds preparing to break the ground an reach for the sun. Will this year see the end of the 'world wide hop shortage'? Will there be a new variety discovered that will transform brewing forever....... You can see why I get off on this stuff.

On a sadder note though, 11000 miles away in New South Wales my own modest hop garden is reaching maturity and the bines are starting to die back. I have tasked my Dad to pick this years harvest, dry them and place them in the freezer so I can use them upon my return - whenever that may be. My hop garden currently consists of 18 bines, but this will most likely be doubled next year. As our family farm is in the Monaro region of NSW it is far from ideal/commercial growing conditions, but perfectly acceptable for my requirements. The picture above was taken by my Dad on New Years day last year and these particular cones are from a Columbus bine.

Whilst it is not ideal for hop growing, It is a very good apple growing area though, and I plan to commercially grow cider apples in the future, but that's another story. Plus, I don't really like cider!

Tonight I am off to the launch of BrewDog's new black lager - Zeitgeist. I have not had a beer since Sunday, so I am frothing for a pint. I hope it's all it is cracked up to be.

St Germain and the 'JT'

We have been having a series of all day departmental meetings at work recently. To celebrate the conclusion of these we let off some steam at St Germain pseudo French restaurant near Farringdon Station. Now these sorts of venues are the ones I aim to avoid - usually at all costs. As it was an all expenses paid affair, it would have been rude not to attend.

The beer list included the usual Belgian suspects - no surprises there. An inclusion that I had not seen before however was Vedett (5.2%abv). This beer is brewed by the masters that also produce Duvel and it comes in a similar style bottle. This is where the similarities to Duvel end. The beer is thin and dry and really, really bland in the Dortmunder export style. It tastes exactly the same as Carlton Cold - hardly a complement. Best avoided.

To refresh my taste buds and actually deliver something worthy, I scanned the beer menu. CAMRA activists would be most disappointed at the lager dominated selection with Chimey, Duvel and Hoegaarden rounding out a token ale selection.

I made a bold decision and ordered Brooklyn Lager (5.2% abv) for my team members. This beer is a nice Vienna style lager that I could easily spend a long time raving and waffling on about, so I won't. I will recommend that everyone tries this beer, even if you are a CAMRA activist. Once upon a time you could source it in Tesco, but those days are gone and you need to refine your search a little now, but it's still out there.

The food was ok, but hardly worth raving about, I also had some wine which I found rather one dimensional. I won't rant about that too much either.

After dinner a few of us went around the corner for a few more pints at The Jerusalem Tavern. In general this is a nice little pub, but I am continually finding it more and more over-rated and the beer going progressively downhill. I had two pints of the St Peter's: Organic Best Bitter and Ruby Red Ale. Both were rather uninspiring and not well kept. The Organic Best Bitter was a fresh cask and it was flat as a tack and about 15 degrees - way too warm. What happened to cellar temperature?

I am not going to head back to the 'JT' any more, there seem to be better options in the area and I can afford to be fussy. Also, I question how they get their beer up from the cellar? Do they have an electric pump moving it? I am obviously amused by thinking about these simple things.

At least I had some people to drink with though, much more exciting than my previous Friday night!

http://www.vedett.com/

http://www.brooklynbrewery.com/

Friday night booziness

My Friday nights usually involve a beer with the lads after work and then quickly home to take the Missus out for dinner. Last Friday night was supposed to be no different, but it saw me getting pretty smashed at home by myself before going to dinner. A sad thing I know, but I dealt with it.
The story starts with me salivating at my desk at 4.30pm hanging to get down to the pub for some more of the Tetley's Dark Mild which I had sampled over lunch time. I had a slight problem though - the office had cleared out and I would have to drink alone. Usually not a problem as I know several regulars at a few of the pubs around the office, but since having a borderline argument with one such twat over my lunchtime pint I retreated home collecting a few bottles from Waitrose on the way. Once home, I contacted the Missus to see how long she will be whilst I poured myself a pint of St Peter's IPA.
"I am playing winglady for Tracy*" was the reply from the other end of my mobile, "she has met a really hot guy and I'm facilitating. I am having one more drink."
Fair enough I thought, Tracy is a nice enough 30 something spinster who deserves to be happy too. So I booted up my PC and happily watched episode 6 of "Oz and James" on BBC iPlayer. I had to pause my viewing twice; once to visit the dunny, the second time to get another beer. It seemed as good a time as any to crack the bottle of Cooper's Vintage Ale 2007 reserve that I picked up in Whole Foods a couple of weeks ago. This beer was good. Actually very good, and it was nice to taste a beer brewed with Australian water. It's the terroir I tell myself while absorbing Oz Clark's attempts to intellectualize beer while James May tries to pass whitty criticisms. The iplayer viewing ends and it is time for another beer. They were going down rather easy. First the 5.5% IPA followed by the 7.5% Australian strong ale - a Fuller's ESB was exactly what I needed. There was nothing interesting on the TV so I watched the second episode of "Ross Kemp: Return to Afghanistan." I check my watch, still no sign of the missus. It's pushing 8.30 now so I give her a call - she is on the tube will be home in 20 minutes. Great I scheme, rubbing my hands together like an evil villain - plenty of time to drink that bottle of Budvar dark I have stashed in the vegetable crisper.
By the time the missus arrived home I was starting to feel a little tipsy, and she was not in much better condition. I decided a curry would be the cure, so we trotted out to my favourite London restaurant: "The Raj of India" - home of the best Kingfisher this side of Favisham. By the time we left the restaurant I was pretty pissed, but boy did I have fun even if I was drinking alone for most of the evening. I'll let you know if Tracy ended up pulling when more info comes to hand - it is probably more interesting than my Friday night was, but I thought I would share anyway.

* Name changed to protect the innocent!

How Queenslanders make XXXX?

Pilsner Urquell 2

Pilsner Urquell is a beer that I manage to have at least once a week. In London it is widely available and reasonably priced. In short, if I were to blog about this everytime I had a pint, there would be a lot of posts about it!

Anyhow Prague is not really the home to Pilsner Urquell, but even when I am in Prague, it is my beer of choice. For this reason alone, I chose to spend my new years eve in Kolkovna, an original Pilsner Urquell restaurant which has a restaurant housed in an old mail room with a cellar bar well, in the cellar! The food here is amazing, with a wide selection of traditional Czech food ranging from wild game sausage to goulash with dumplings and everything in between. Being a connoisseur of the gastronomic delight that is Pork Knuckle, this was my choice which I washed down with several glasses of Pilsner Urquell. Anyhow we finished up in the restaurant at about 11.45pm and headed to the old town square to count in the new year. Following the festivities we braved thousands of misguided youths throwing homemade firecrackers at people and made a dash for the hotel, in a drunk and merry manner.

This caps off the year 2008 in beer for me. I think it is the first time I have actually set out a new years resolution and actually kept at it. In saying this, I actually really enjoy blogging but the format and subject matter of the original endeavor tends to get a little bit stale after a while and I feel like I am a ticker trying to sound intellectual about beer. The real reason I started this blog was to show my wife that there is more to beer than just drinking, and also so she could keep track of what I am drinking (It was felt by the Mrs that a crate of cheap lager a fortnight was too much booze). I have never really taken things seriously and I now feel that beer is something to be enjoyed, and the actual taste of the beer is just a small part of this and it's the environment and company in which it is consumed that really matter. So tomorrow will see a number of changes in the format of this blog. Along with a new look and feel, there will be content changes with my opinions/rants about various beery things as well as stories of my travels and beers consumed. Thanks to all those that supported the old format, I hope you continue to enjoy reading in the future.

PS. I have a new resolution for this year as well, and that is to write a book outlining some historical Sydney pub and beer walks. if you have any ideas/suggestions please forward them on.

Kozel Dark

Also in the 24 hour non-stop across the road from my hotel in Prague was a bottle of Kozel Dark (3.8% abv). I had to pay a 'premium' of 30 crowns (~ £1) for this gem, but it was worth the extra.

My first experience with Kozel was on my last trip to Prague and I remember clearly how different it was to German Schwarzbiers such as Köstritzer. Where the German offering was dark pretty much in colour only, the Czech brewed Kozel is full of melanoids and a thick full body. This difference is something which is rarely acknowledged in craft brewing circles where Bohemium dark lagers tend to get lumped into the generic schwarzbier category with their softer German neighbours.

I don't need to go to much about how good this beer is. I am pretty suire that 90% plus of readers would already be educated in the delights of this gem. I did find this little paragraph here though which sums up my feelings.

"This beer came in its standard Czech 500 ml bottle and poured a dark ruby red, near black colour with a light tan head that swelled to about an inch before slowly settling. It had very little aroma, but I could sense the Saaz hops and slight burnt malt in it. The first taste had a full, but not too heavy taste of malt, and the Saaz could be felt on swallowing. Subsequent sips wend down smooth and easy.
It was a good drinking experience, and would likely go well with a steak dinner. But I don't think I would pay the full price for it. If I see it in the bargain bin again, I'll grab it."

http://www.kozel.cz/

Gambrinus Premium

On New Years Day we caught the train from Vienna to Prague. I was last in Prague back in 2006 or was it early 2007? I'm not entirely sure, but anyhow the place has become even more dominated by tourism since my last visit, and it appears that every second shop is now selling tacky souveniers. The taxi ride to our hotel was full of adventure with the driver getting lost even with the use of a SatNav.

This aside I was lucky enough to have a nice 24 hour off license type place across the street which was selling Gambrinus Premium (4.9% abv) on offer. I know that this is not exactly the best of Czech lagers, but it was one I had not had before and I was keen to pick something up with the few crowns change I had in my pocket.

Gambrinus is brewed by Pilsner Urquell and is the most popular beer in the Czech republic dominating with 25% of the market. The beer is ok, and was much needed after the drain of the train ride and the taxi adventure but still did not 'excite*' me in the way and unpastaurized glass of Urquell or Kozel does. But it still whet the whistle adequately!

Website:http://www.gambrinus.cz/

*No erections were observed during this excitement. I don't get hard, or even semi over beer.

Gösser Märzen

Ok, I only have four posts left for 2008. Being an impatient lad, I have resolved to get them out of the way this afternoon, and revamp everything for tomorrow! Yay!

Anyhow, Gösser Märzen (5.2% abv) is an Austrian Mega swill and is the cheapest beer I came across during my travels. It's not really to style and tastes pretty ordinary and makes Australian megaswill taste like god's nectar. I recommend steering clear of this one, which I tracked down in Vienna.

Schwechater

I found this one in a dodgy off license type place near our hotel. I only picked one up to see what it was like, and I was rather surprised with this Austrian brewed beer.
A bit of history. The history of the Schwechater beer started in the year 1632. Peter Descrolier, who was valet and paymaster of archduke Matthias, founded the brewery in Schwechat. But the real success story only began in 1760, when the waiter Franz Anton Dreher moved to Vienna and leased the brewery Ober-Lanzendorf. In 1796 he bought the brewery in Schwechat, and the Schwechater beer was ready to start its triumphant advance.
The next milestone of the success story followed in 1841. Anton Dreher, the son of Franz Anton Dreher, who already collected a lot of beer brewing experiences during his trips to Munich and England, tried to produce for the first time a bottom-fermented beer, and brought it to Vienna.The Viennese people were so excited about it, that they only wanted to drink the Schwechater beer. This was the hour of birth for the nowadays popular "lager beer". Because of the big onrush at the beer, Schwechater had to use machines for the production. Dreher was the first brewer in Austria who used a steam engine to brew his beer. This was in 1848. Nowdays the steam engine is displayed in the technical museum in Vienna.Anton Dreher senior dies in 1863 and his son Anton Dreher junior takes over the company in 1870. In the "iceless winter" 1872 100 million kg of ice had to be brought by railway from Poland to Vienna. Such experience motivated Anton Dreher to learn more about artificial cooling and production of ice. In 1877 Schwechater Beer was the first who invented and used a cool machine for artificial cellar cooling.During the first world war the production reached it's all-time-low. The brewery workers which had to go to war, still received their salary the whole war through. During the war the production was reduced, but never shut down. Anton Dreher died as a very rich man in 1921. After his death the company was handed to his oldest son Anton Eugen Dreher (born 1871). But he died already in 1925. He was the last brewing master of the Schwechater beer, and so this was the end of the long lasting Schwechater beer dynasty. The lead of the brewery was inherited to some relatives of Anton Eugen Dreher. But the relatives were not interested in the brewery, and sold their participations to several banks in 1925. This was how the 130-dynasty of family Dreher and the Schwechater beer ended.
I think it is interesting how this brewing family is related to the Dreher family who also own a Hungarian brewery. I had one of their beers earlier in the year as well. You can read about that here.
http://www.schwechater.at/

Radeburger Pils 2

You may remember that I had this beer way back when I was in Berlin. I have found out a lot more aboiut the beer since then and wanted to share a bit of the story.

We stopped into a cafe at around lunchtime after doing the 'hop on, hop off' buss tour around Vienna. They should use these terms loosly as the services were running every two and half hours and there were not enough seats left on the bus to accomodat a 'hop on, hop off' service. Anyhow, this cafe, whose name escapes me now is supposed to be famous for it's apple struddle, but as my luck would have it they were all out so I went for a pint of Radeburger Pils instead (and yes, everyone else had hot chocolate). A little bit of hostory would not go astray here, as the beer is actually from the former DDR/Prussia rather than Austria.

The Radeberger brewery was born in 1872 in Radeberg, a suburb of Dresden. It was the first brewery in Germany to brew beer exclusively in the Pilsner style. By the late 1880s the brewers numbers had risen to 300,000 cases per year which was a lot for a regional brewery back then. The brewery takes pride in the fact that in 1905, Radeberger Pilsner became the favourite drink of king Friedrich August of Saxony. In 1946 the communist East German government took control of the brewery until after the fall of the Soviet Union, when Binding Brauerei purchased the company and returned its sales to West Germany. After the purchase the brewery underwent comprehensive renovations to bring their brewery up to speed with modern brewing. In 2004 the brewery was sold privately and was delisted from the stock market.


Website: http://www.radeberger-pilsner.de/

Ottakringer Pils

On Boxing day we ventured to the Austrian capital, Vienna by train. It was a most pleasant journey and we arrived in good time to get caught in a minor blizzard whilst trying to find our hotel. I think you know what is going to happen now? Well the wife and out-laws decided to warm up over a hot chocolate and I opted for a beer yet again. This time I took the only option available and ended up with a pint of Ottakringer Pils. I now beleive that this is a limited edition beer, as most of my google based research tends to lead me to Gold Fassl, which this beer is not.

Out of the Austrian beers I did have, thie is my firm favourite. The beer is more in the style of a modern Australian Bohemium pilsner along the lines of James Squire Pilsner which is a great beer. Anyhow, I sure did enjoy this beer a lot more than the tee-totaling in laws would have enjoyed their hot chocolate! http://www.ottakringer.at/