beers of conviction

We were forewarned by Ron Pattinson (read the comments too) not to expect too much from the Pilsner Urquell brewery tour. However, rather than requesting a behind-the-scenes look during which I could ask my usual geeky questions, I wanted to see and hear how the brewing giant SABMiller presents Urquell to the public.

I’m glad we went.

It was worth it if only to wander through the lagering cellars and imagine what they were like when they were full of more than the few barrels that remain.

Back to the beginning. The tour costs 150 Czech Koruna (less than $7.50), 100 more if you want to take pictures inside the factory (that’s what they call it). You’d think somebody there read Ron’s post, because they carefully warned us that the tour takes about 90 minutes and we might want to use the toilet before embarking.

In fact, it lasted 80 minutes (perhaps because there were only 11 of us, including four Czechs taking the English tour for reasons unknown) and didn’t start with a movie. We saw one movie as part of the introduction to ingredients, and it did a pretty good job of talking about stuff like triple decoction without using the word. We saw a second short movie taken at the brewery in the early 1900s.

As at Budejovicky Budvar a couple of days before we breezed past cyclindro-conical tanks and primary fermentation was mentioned only in passing, but unlike at Budvar we never saw actual lagering tanks — just the wooden ones where beer is aged for tourists to taste (the literature we received also indicated this beer is compared with the brewery’s industrially produced beer). Of course we wandered about the old shiny copper brewhouse, but could view the new one only through glass.

What made the tour worth it was the walk in the cellars. The tour guide emphasized many times to stick with the group so nobody would get lost. It was easy to imagine when the cellars were full of barrels. When we finally get back home I’m looking forward to watching Michael Jackson’s Beer Hunter video from the 1980s. Not only to compare what it looks like, but for answers to some of the questions Ron raised, like if lagering has been shortened over the years.

We stopped briefly at wooden open fermenters where the “tasting” beer undergoes primary fermentation. While I was taking pictures the tour moved on to the halls with lagering barrels, for what the guide called “the best part of the tour, tasting.” Now behind, I hurried through the first set of barrels, passing a man carrying a clipboard.

I stopped to take a picture of the barrels, dang hard to get them in the low light since I was determined not to use the flash. When I turned around I saw the man (a brewer?) at the other end drawing a sample. That’s the picture above.

By now Sierra was worried I was lost and she came back to drag me into the next room with barrels, where everybody was already drinking. A friendly fellow poured a sample into a small (100-200cl) glass. This was beer made in the old way, using open fermentation in wood and then lagered in the cellars in wood. It was not filtered. It was very good.

Nobody was talking, and by the time I tried to take a couple more photos and had enjoyed less than half the glass the tour was ready to move on. The guide said anybody was welcome to a second beer. Nobody took him up on it. Except me. I hurried back to the fellow pouring beer, handing him an empty glass while I finished the first (resisting chugging).

He smiled, poured one and seemed to suggest I could take one for each hand.

I declined.

Why I don’t know.

Are boring beers or badly made beers the real enemy?

One thing about moving outside your comfort zone, ordering beers in languages you don’t speak and knocking back what the locals drink even if you might never have heard of the beers . . . you come across both. (Same with wine, which can be even more confusing in “emerging” wine countries like Croatia and Slovenia).

While I consider this question myself I’d like to hear your opinions.

And, no, “both” is not an acceptable answer. You have to pick one.

Last night we ate in a restaurant in Florence that, like plenty others in Italy, boasts it serves “products of the region.”

More than half the customers were American tourists — it’s Florence — but if you didn’t listen too carefully the place didn’t feel touristy. There were local meat dishes to choose from as well as pizza (Daria declared her’s the best she’s had on our trip), calzones, all that you would expect.

We drank Chianta. We’re in Tuscany, it was poured from a barrel and it cost €4.80 for a half liter.

But as I paid the bill at the bar I noticed a dang fine beer selection lined up above. Rochefort 8, Orval, Duvel, Achel, St. Bernardus Tripel among others. But no Italian craft beer.

I’ve heard more than one non-Italian brewer compare what’s going on with Italian beer to 20 years ago in the United States. Sometimes that’s not intended as a compliment, but as a reference to a technical brewing gap. Mostly it’s about the excitement generated by brewers and their fans.

It’s grown because Italians haven’t tried to recreate America circa 1988, when U.S. brewers were just beginning to explore basic styles. They are drawing from the world, adding flowers, using chestnuts, tossing in tobacco . . . basically being Italian. They are making some really interesting beers we all want to drink.

However they remain small and, like American craft breweries in 1988, not all that well known in their own country. This might surprise American drinkers, because new Italian beers seem to arrive daily. And their beer sells for more in Italy than, for the sake of comparison, Trappist beers do in Belgium (or Orval does in Italy, for that matter). Additionally, Italy began feeling the economic downturn before many other countries.

To cut to the quick, this is not as simple as “brew great beers and they will come.”

More thoughts on this in a week or so, including why this is important to pay attention to even if you don’t drink in Italy. In the interim, I’ll be in research mode.

– History according to Stella. Lager contains “only the four traditional ingredients of beer” — malt, water, hops and maize. Learning stuff like this is why Boak and Bailey’s Beer Blog is essential reading.

– Get well, Uncle Jack. Fortunately, Jack Curtin “only” lost an appendix, a lot of time to the hospital and some weight. Send him your best.

– Pissing in the steets. There are many good reasons to read Pete Brown’s blog. I recommend subscribing to his rss feed because he might go three weeks between posts. Always worth the wait. I had a damn hard time deciding what to quote from the most recent.

Hands up – every now and then, maybe once every couple of months, I take a leak in some dark street corner on the way home. I’m not proud of it. I’m faintly disgusted by it. But here’s the thing: the British Public Toilets Association (yes, there really is such a thing) reckons 45% of public conveniences have closed in the last couple of decades. They occupy prime real estate – one former public toilet was recently sold for £125,000 as a flat.

And be sure to read the comments.