Pivní Filosof - Beer Philosopher

Christmas Surprise

2010-03-18T12:29:00.004+01:00

A couple of days before last Christmas I got in mailbox an announcement telling me I had a parcel from Norway waiting for me at the local post office (which is in the next village)."Hmmm!" I say opening my eyes wide and twisting my mouth appropriately to express my intrigue. I wasn't expecting anything from the long country of the North. After seeing the parcel's weight written on the slip I

A Paradox

2010-03-16T16:57:00.004+01:00

Mi favourite "beer proverb" is: "The only important thing is what's in the glass. The rest, at most, is interesting". I also believe that the ideal way to evaluate a beer would be using the so called "Double Blind Tasting" method, in which you don't have any preliminary information whatsoever about the beer or beers to be judged.In reality, though, this method is pretty hard to use. There's

Amazing

2010-03-12T18:56:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I put on my journalist costume and had did an interview for my next piece for Bar&Beer. I was at SPŠPT (that in Czech stands for Industrial Middle School for Food Technology), where, among other careers, kids can learn Brewing. There I had one of the most wonderful beer experiences of my life, tasting at a secondary school beers brewed by pupils.I tasted three of them, a polotmavý ležák

The brand above the drink

2010-03-09T16:02:00.003+01:00

A few days ago Pete Brown told us about the fate of Tetley's Cask, and how its owner, Carlsberg UK, have decided they will close the brewery in Leeds and shift the production elsewhere in England.This is nothing new, neither surprising. It's common practice among the big multinational brewing groups. Heineken CZ have been a lot on the news lately for doing just that here in the Czech Republic.

Things are taking shape

2010-03-08T08:19:00.002+01:00

Well, it seems my idea was not as crazy as I had thought. There've been quite a few who've said they would like to attend what I have decided to call Internation Gathering of Beer Bloggers, Prague 2010. People from Latvia, Spain, England, Norway, Denmark y Holland have already expressed their interest and so, the even already has a date: 22-23 October 2010.The program hasn't been defined yet, it

More Swedes

2010-03-06T12:16:00.003+01:00

I bet you were thinking I had forgotten. No way! How could I? But with so many things to write about and a sudden surge in work, I had to postpone the publishing of the tasting notes from the rest of the Swedish beers Leif had brought me.This time the notes come from four samples from the same brewery Jämtlands Bryggeri.Something curious happened to me with them. If you take each on its own you

On the same topic

2010-03-01T10:17:00.002+01:00

I've got quite a bit of work today, but I still wanted to post something. Something related to the topic I talked about the other day, the difference between the perception of beer and wine.Films and TV series are often a good mirror to contemporary popular culture and the other day I was thinking about how beer is portrayed in them and ended up with the following questions:How many times have

A crazy idea

2010-02-26T11:55:00.002+01:00

One of the advantages of having a long commute is that I have time to think. It is then that I put together much of what I write here, and sometimes I come up with ideas that can go from the brilliant to the utterly stupid. Which of these extremes is the following idea closer to, that's something you can judge by yourself:I want to organise a gathering of beer bloggers in Prague, in Autumn. I've

Imperial my ass!

2010-02-24T11:29:00.005+01:00

The first time I cam across the phrase "Imperial Pilsner" was on the label of Mikkeller Draft Bear, the beer I drank to welcome the new year. though I thought the name was quite silly, I figured it was a bit of a joke.A few days later I saw a Dutch Imperial Pilsner reviewed in a Spanish beer blog. And a couple of weeks after that Stan Hieronymus wrote that Orval's Brew Master had also made an

A question of perception

2010-02-22T11:37:00.003+01:00

The other day Mark, in his blog Pencil&Spoon, wrote a very interesting post on beer and wine, which actually carries on an old discussion originated on that "Beer is the new wine" thing.First of all, I want to make clear that to me "Beer is the new wine" is just a load of bollocks. It implies that beer is a lesser drink, when it's not, if anything, it's more versatile and varied than wine. That

Gringo come home!

2010-02-19T16:50:00.005+01:00

American "Craft Beers" enjoy a massive reputation and many of them have served as templates for many a micro brewer from around the world.Naturally, like any beer enthusiast worth his salt, I really wanted to drink at least some of them, but I had pretty much come to terms with the idea that there was nobody here willing to import them. I tried to see if there was anything I could do on my own,

No liniency

2010-02-15T09:15:00.002+01:00

The other day the girls from 2D2dspuma wrote a long and very good rant about what they expect from craft beers (they own a shop in Barcelona, the centre of the craft beer movement in Spain). In a nutshell, the beers should be good and interesting (what is that makes a beer interesting is perhaps topic for another discussion, but even if it's in Spanish, read the post).In the comments, one of the

A fest for the brave

2010-02-14T16:46:00.003+01:00

Once again, Honza Kočka is organising an event that aims to enrich our beer culture. This time, time invitation is for Festival Desítek.Those who follow this blog are well aware that here "desítka" means a beer of around 4%ABV, or 10% in the Plato scale. In this case, though, the 10 means the ABV.There will be samples from Belgium, Denmark, Holland and, of course, domestic (there might be some

Some Swedes

2010-02-12T11:07:00.003+01:00

Some of the reactions this blog generate are pretty interesting. One day I got an e-mail from a Swede called Leif saying that those beers that Gnoff had brought me where nor the best, neither the most interesting that Sweden has to offer, and that he would correct that in his upcoming visit.So we agreed to meet one afternoon. I went to pick him up at his hotel and we went for some beers to

A trend?

2010-02-08T07:30:00.000+01:00

Or is it too soon to speak about that?Last year beer sales fell everywhere, I think. The Czech Republic is no exception, where sales dropped by 5% overall (with 10% on exports). No surprise here.However, if we take a second to look at the numbers in more detail we will notice a couple of very interesting things.Plzeňský Prazdoj, the largest brewer in the country, reported a decrease of 4.4%.

Making the best of an invitation

2010-02-04T00:10:00.001+01:00

Though I talk about places that I visit while wandering around the city, restaurant reviewing is nor my area of expertise, neither the main topic of this blog. That's why I was quite surprised by the mail received from Restaurace Paprika a few days before Christmas.Paprika is a small Hungarian restaurant located in a back street of Holešovice. Its owner Holešovice wanted to invite me to taste the

A pisshead anecdote

2010-02-02T09:23:00.001+01:00

To a certain extent, Czech beer lovers aren't spoil for choice when it comes to style variety, but if it's good quality lagers what we are talking about, and session beers in particular, we really can't complain. Moreover, unlike what happens in most other countries, the "real beers" are often cheaper than those of the bigger brands. That's why it's sometimes hard to believe that there are still

Surprise from Barcelona

2010-01-29T12:06:00.004+01:00

Fortunately, Glops Fumada wasn't the only thing that my friend Ramón brought me on his last visit.When he wrote asking if there was any beer in particular I was interested in, I could have asked him for another sample from Guineu, their Montserrat was lovely and I have good reason to believe it isn't an exception among their product line. I could have also asked him to bring over a bottle from

Darker greys

2010-01-25T11:49:00.003+01:00

Some time ago I commented that what Heineken was doing in the Czech Republic was neither black, nor white, but rather of several shades of grey. Well, it seems those shades are getting a bit darker.Pivovar Kutná Hora wasn't the only brewery that Heineken closed last year. They also sealed the fate of Pivovar Znojmo, which stopped brewing last summer.After closing down the shop, the Dutch group

I just love winter

2010-01-23T14:22:00.002+01:00

The colder the better. OK, it's true that the amount of snow that fell the last two weekends was way more than necessary, and that clearing it from the driveway, walkway and part of the terrace, several times, was a pain in the ass. The reward, however, was priceless.I love winter, a few minutes outside and a světlý ležák gets to the right temperature.Na Zdraví!Travel to the Czech Republic and

Something tasty for the weekend

2010-01-22T10:19:00.004+01:00

This is the result of another culinary experiment that turned out to be great, tasty, rich and very caloric, what isn't there to love?: Baltic Porter RagoutIngredients: (Bailey, you are going to love this)500g of shoulder of pork (though mutton, lamb or even boar could be good)1/2l Baltic Porter (If you don't have anything in that style, plain Porter or Dopplebock should do fine)100g of smoked

Don't bother

2010-01-21T10:03:00.005+01:00

In his previous visit, my friend Ramón had brought me three samples from the Spanish micro Llúpols i Llevats, a.k.a. Glops. One of them, d'Hivern, an ale flavoured with honey and herbs, I quite liked. The other two, both lagers, well, let's just say they weren't good.That time Ramón didn't want to bring me Glops Fumada (smoked) because he had very wrongly assumed that I didn't like that kind of

Enriching conversations

2010-01-18T12:16:00.004+01:00

OK. I'm sure that for many of you this won't be anything new, but still I want to say it. Having a chat with someone who makes a living out of making beer, specially with true Brew Masters, is a fantastic experience, one I think I would still enjoy even without being the beer obsessed that I am.During this decade that I've been teaching languages to adults I've got to know pretty well many

A question of semantics?

2010-01-11T12:11:00.003+01:00

In today's blog post Alan once again rants against the use of the word "pairing" when speaking about beer and food combinations.I understand and, to a certain extent, I agree with his point of view. Those who know about beer, or who are experienced and curious drinkers don't really need to be instructed on which beer should be drank with this or that food. We are very well able to do that by

Heavyweights

2010-01-08T15:52:00.003+01:00

My old man had his 65th birthday a few days before he and my mum came to visit us for Christmas. When I sent him the greetings I promised we would have toast with something appropriate. The beer I had in mind was Mikeller Black, a 17.5%ABV that its creator had sent me a couple of months before. And so it was that I uncorked it after a pre-Christmas dinner . We had it in brandy glasses, perhaps