Pivo is Another Word for Love
Dear Reader,
I don’t want to lie to you. During my time in the Czech Republic, I spent a fair amount of time in pubs. To those who know me personally, this is perhaps not a particularly surprising admission. And yet, despite my affinity for the occasional consumption of an alcoholic beverage or two, I feel like I should sort of attempt to explain pub life as I experienced it in Prague, because during my time there, it struck me as unique.
The Czechs are all very proud of their beer. Just as the French have a reputation for good wine and food, so do Czechs for beer. The flagship beer of the Czech Republic is Plzeňský Prazdroj, though it is better known by its German name, Pilsner Urquell.
Most locals, when ordering it, will just refer to it as Plzeň. Knowledgeable beer buffs will undoubtedly know what a pilsner beer is. Well, the translation of Plzeňský Prazdroj is simply, “Original Source of Pilsner.” It was the first light-colored beer in the world, originally brewed in 1842 by the Bavarian brewer Josef Groll.
I have had many conversations with lots of different people about their favorite Czech beer. Oftentimes, I was preferential to the beer brewed in Prague itself, Staropramen (“Old Spring”), especially Staropramen Černý, a type of dark lager.
I never took too many pictures of beer there. Probably because I was too busy drinking it.
Others, like my friend Sven, proclaimed allegiance to Braník, likely because it was the cheapest you could buy at the local potraviny, which are tiny grocery stores that are a bit like gas stations without the fuel. A lot of them seemed to be run by entire families of Vietnamese immigrants.
At one time, my old roomie Steve and I were on the same page when it came to beer, but now he tells me Svijany has “captured his heart,” going on to call it a “nice non-filtered.” But my Czech friends invariably order a fresh mug of Plzeň. A former student, Tomaš, once summed up his reasoning with a smile: “Because it is the best.”
As I understand it, pubs in the Czech Republic have contractual agreements with certain brewers to sell only their types of beer. Outside the pub or bar in question will be a sign, sometimes illuminated, sometimes not, mentioning the “house” beer, as it were.
In Prague, the three most common beers are Pilsner, Staropramen, and Budvar. Occasionally you’ll see signs for Gambrinus (which is brewed by the makers of Pilsner), Bernard, Krušovice and others. When you travel to other towns, you get more variety. In the town of Děčín, Steve and I indulged in a beer called Žatec, which is brewed in the same region of Bohemia, known as Ústí nad Labem.
So many beers in the Czech Republic are named after the towns in which they are made. There is the aforementioned Plzeň and Žatec, but one that I have kind of overlooked until now is the Budvar. Its full name might sound strangely familiar: Budweiser Budvar.
Brewed in the city of České Budějovice, located some ways south of Prague, Budweiser Budvar was once the imperial brewery for the Holy Roman Empire, along with Pilsner.
A curious bit of historical information follows. Please forgive me for any inaccuracies. In the 1870s, the American brewer Adolphus Busch toured Europe and visited the breweries in Plzeň and České Budějovice, presumably rather wowed by the experience of tasting this relatively new type of beer, that is, the pilsner. When he returned to St. Louis, Busch released his own version of the Czech pilsner style, which he began marketing as Budweiser. Hailed now — un-ironically, I suppose — as “The King of Beers,” the makers of the American version of Budweiser soon came into a huge trademark dispute with the Czech originators of that particular brand name.
As it presently stands, in the European Union, Budweiser Budvar lays claim to that naming trademark. In the United States, it is possible to find imported bottles of Budvar, but it is marketed as the wholly generic sounding Czechvar. During my time in the Czech Republic, I never once did see any American beers, of any stripe or variety. Most pubs there cater to Czech brands, although a notable exception to my mind is the pub/restaurant Los v Oslu (“The Moose”), which has a basement dwelling Belgian Beer Club.
Which leads me to speak both more generally and specifically about the various drinking establishments to be found in Prague. In New Town especially, one finds a variety of bars to frequent.
The prototypical bar that my friends and I often visited is called the Red Room. It’s got the dim lighting and blood red walls with small to medium-sized caricatures of famous musicians and celebrities hung about everywhere. There are a few tall round tables where people stand or sit around to drink, smoke, and schmooze. An L-shaped sofa runs the length of one wall and another smaller sofa is positioned at the wall opposite. A small, square-shaped stage is elevated perhaps a foot above the ground. There, various local musicians get up to ply their craft. Every week there is an open-mic night. It wasn’t long before I had friends gathering up the courage to strap on a guitar and face the crowd.
Beyond the bar itself — serving Staropramen and Hoegaarden on tap — and through a narrow hallway, there is an adjoining room with two small tables for drinks. A foosball table with blue and red players is positioned in the center. Posters and pictures of rock stars — Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain — look on from above as an international tournament of foosball plays on, night after night, until a champion is crowned. A Czech pub is not complete in Prague without a foosball table. Everyone plays. Billiards and darts are rare in comparison.
Red Room is but one of several expat bars that seems to cater to an English-speaking crowd. There are others, like the Blind Eye in the neighborhood of Žižkov, although last I heard they had closed their doors.
I remember once going to a Super Tourist bar/club right near the river where they had a large dance floor playing music like Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” Queen, classic Michael Jackson, and 90s Eurodance. The experience was rather bewildering because, despite being a Czech bar, the only beer they served was overpriced Heineken. Already deep into my love affair with Czech beer, I recall saying at the time something along the lines of, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
From our TEFL training course days, Steve and I would sometimes meet up with his former student Radim, who would take us to traditional Czech pubs in Old Town. There, you would take a seat on a wooden bench with a wooden table. Ashtrays and beer coasters were provided in abundance. Oven-roasted peanuts too, if I remember right.
The beer, most often Pilsner Urquell, would be poured in thick glass mugs with handles, 50 centiliters of pure golden bliss. All Czech beer mugs worth their salt have a marker, a small black line perhaps 2 or 3 cm from the top of the glass, indicating where 50 cLs is. With a perfect pour, the remaining space is used for the thick, foamy head. There is always a collective “Ahh!” of approval each time people clink their glasses together and take a drink.
It’s worth elaborating on this ritual. Czechs say, “Na zdraví,” which literally means “To your health.” All countries have all their own word or phrase for this. The Spanish say, “Salud.” The French, as my girlfriend often corrected me when we first started seeing one another, say, “Santé.” The Dutch say, “Proost.” The Germans vary this somewhat with a forceful, “Prost!” Most English speakers say “Cheers,” but, of course, this depends on the person. The list goes on and on.
After the toast, it is customary to clink glasses while making eye contact. To do otherwise is considered rude. After everyone’s glasses have touched, the glass is then brought down to the table and then everyone takes a swig.
Regarding customer service: some fellow expats I spoke to didn’t care for the Czech method of service, which can appear cold and detached. I, for one, loved it. Compare to service in America, which can be exceptional, but it is especially tiresome when a waitress approaches your table every five minutes to ask, “Is everything OK here?” seemingly always right when you have food in your mouth. The forced smiles, the fake friendliness and underlying disdain, the impatience to take your plate or glass away in order to have an excuse to go out back to smoke a cigarette.
But in the Czech Republic, if the server doesn’t like you, you pretty much know it right away. They often don’t smile or make small talk. They never ask questions about your meal. In fact, if you’re at a restaurant, after you receive your food, they will leave you the hell alone unless you call them to the table. But here is one crucial difference. If your beer is empty, it will be taken away and refilled automatically unless you specifically say no. Yes! Believe me, it is a beautiful thing.
Another place I’d like to talk about is a place we used to visit called U Sudu. It too is in New Town, really only a few blocks from Red Room, but the difference between these two places is night & day. When you enter U Sudu, it seems like an innocuous and narrow wine bar. But if you hang a right and go past the bathrooms, there is an inconspicuous looking door that leads down into the cellar. The staircase is wooden, narrow, and curved. Very treacherous. But once you make it down, it opens up into a brick-walled room filled with 4 foosball tables. People of all nationalities and languages play together and always find a common tongue.
The cellar there is a labyrinth, expanding into a crowded room with tables and benches, and two separate bars, which are always packed the gills. Smoking indoors is legal in the Czech Republic, so a blue haze seems to perpetually linger in the air.
Did I mention the Czech word for beer is “pivo?” To my mind, there are few phrases that slip off the tongue easier than, “Jedno pivo, prosím.” Another useful thing to note is how people there order multiple beers using their fingers. If you’ve seen the Tarantino movie, “Inglorious Basterds,” you have seen this in play, albeit with more dramatic results. To order one beer, one uses his or her thumb. For two beers, it is the thumb and index finger — not the index and middle — and so on.
Perhaps the best places to drink in Prague are the beer gardens. I know of a few. One is in Letna Park, on a hill overlooking the city. It has a magnificent view.
The other place is within Riegrovy Sady, another park that was much closer to home. We visited there often. Beer gardens open in early spring and stay open until the end of fall. During the summer months, people gather there in droves to sit on the rows and rows of bench tables to drink Gambrinus, and to order red or white klobasa, krk (basically, a slice of neck), and other assorted offerings.
A large projection screen shows sports matches, normally football (soccer) or hockey, and the people cheer along, sing songs, and there is a general ambiance there of revelry and joy. Plus, they have foosball. In the summer of 2010, I watched several World Cup matches there, but that is another story for another day.
Speaking of other stories, I’m reminded that near the end of my time in the Czech Republic, I visited the city of Plzeň and toured the brewery there.
And I still must write about our beloved nejlepši nonstop, but that hallowed dive bar deserves its own entry someday. Stay tuned for more.
