Actually, Budvar had a history as “Budvar” here in the U.S. — I have a brown .5 liter bottle I kept as a collector when I knew the label was going to be swapped due to the legal battle.

But your point reinforces what I was trying to say above, and get across to Evan, beer “afficianados” here in the U.S. made Budvar popular because they knew it was what U.S. Bud was really supposed to be (give or take).

“Go far enough back, and that’s how the original Prior (from PA brewers Scheidt and then Schmidt’s) was marketed.”

Prior, of course, was based on Pilsner Urquell (which stopped shipments to the US during WWII), and distributed by the original P/U importer. My point? I’m not sure, now (after that extra caffeine) since, in some ways, it’s closed to A-B Bud vs. Budvar but, the point was, it was sort of “guerilla” marketed as the “true” Pilsner Urquell for a time.

Granted, the official PR had to be worded in a certain cryptic way, but many retailers with magic markers had no such restrictions. In fact, over the years, those same retailers had been selling a number of beers as the “true Budweiser” (I recall hand written signs for “Crystal” and either Samson or Burgerbrau over the years, all from the same brewer IIRC). Go far enough back, and that’s how the original Prior (from PA brewers Scheidt and then Schmidt’s) was marketed.

In fact, one would have to say that the original Czechvar importers (there’ve been a few in it’s short life, right?) kinda squandered the “rep” the beer had, after an intial burst of promotion and press. In NJ, (a huge market for imports, where Pilsner Urquell is quite common) I *never* see fresh Czechvar anymore (I know one pretty well-stocked store with 1/2 liter brown bottles with “Best By” dates of Feb. 2006). Some of that maybe the due to problems with switch to A-B distributors, but the InBev beers in this area had few problems that I saw.

I’ll look for it on the shelves.

Golden Pheasant, huh? How does that compare to regular Heineken?

No comparison in the least — man, I can tell you’re being spoiled over there! The last GP I had was at a quaint Bohemian restaurant in Wisconsin, Vom Faß, on a July afternoon with the temp in the mid 80s F — man, did that go down nice.

Imported by Classic Beverages (the link is to their website, which doesn’t seem to say where Bürgerbräu would be available).

Golden Pheasant, huh? How does that compare to regular Heineken?

I would probably tend to agree, but are they available in the U.S? And, big deal here — do they poke the tiger’s cage by saying they’re the true, original Budweiser? That’s where I think we delight the most!

And for the record — I’ve often said I like Urquell and Golden Pheasant better than Budvar, but when rubbing the big cat’s fur in the wrong direction, nothing like the “true” Bud!

After the post came out, Roger gave me a thumbs-up. He’s a great guy who deserves all the respect he’s got, and not just for his outstanding expertise and writing: he also gave me some much-needed advice when I was starting on GBGPCR, and he’s thanked him by name in the book’s acknowledgments. I owe him more than just a beer.

As I said, my point with this post was only to provide the local angle as I understand it. (I’m an outsider, too, albeit one who has lived here for a long time.)

What I’d like to reiterate is that the outside view is sometimes right: Budvar can look like David when it battles the Anheuser-Busch Goliath. But for small Czech breweries like Rebel, Herold, Chodovar, Svijany and others, Budvar is no longer David. Instead, it’s Goliath, 10 times larger, a massive enterprise which sometimes acts like a Goliath, too. It’s fine to root for Budvar from afar. But if you’re up close, you’d probably want to pull for the little guys.

Steve, you said you can think of worse beers than Budvar to champion. So can I. But in Czech terms, I can think of some far better ones, too.