Budapest, Vienna & Prague

[guildofevil]

Hi All,
Betty and I have decided on our holiday this year and I was wondering what people knew about beer and breweries along our itinary.

We will be arriving in Budapest (Hungary) spending five days there, then taking a train to Vienna (Austria) for a weekend, followed by a further five days in Prague (Czeck Republic).

Betty has already agreed to a daytrip to either Pilzen or Budwies/Budejovice and to accompany me on two brewery tours if I can arrange them. Have any of you been to this part of the world? Know of any good brewery tours? Where would you recommend we go?

Séan

[Crna_Ruka]

Slainte!

If you can swing a little out of your way Pilsner Urquel in Plzen, CZ and Budejovicky Budvar in Ceske Budejovice, CZ, both brew the finest, niether in Praha though, both offer tours.

Must reserve in advance, tours in Englesh is a little extra.

Full info at (maps, times, etc) :

http://www.budvar.cz/budvar/budvar-web/product/cms/budvar-produkt/virtualni_prohlidka/clanek_en.cms

and

http://www.pilsner-urquell.com/

*I would like to visit St. James Gate. Aurthur Guinness was a clever man, our Guinness is made in Canada now, I don't drink it much anymore*

[patto1ro]

You can find a full list of all the breweries (and their beers) in Austria & Czexh Republic here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/czecbrew.htm
http://www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/austbrew.htm

There are pub guides to Prague, Vienna, Salzburg and Budpest here:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/pragintr.htm
http://www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/budapubs.htm
http://www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/vienpubs.htm
http://www.xs4all.nl/~patto1ro/salzburg.htm

Vienna is full of brewpubs - last count was 13.

[chazwicke]

I have been to both Pilsner Urquel in Plzen, CZ and Budejovicky Budvar in Ceske Budejovice, CZ. We were invited into a wedding party at the Budvar brewery and gypsies tried to exchange our money for their worthless brass coins outside of PU. Was a fun trip and so was the Vienna part of that trip. I only made it to a small town that was the home land and town of my buddies family in Hungary. And was accosted by Gypsies who were after my gold ring in a bar in the former Yugoslavia (only time I have ever been scared in all of my travels) and the border gaurds also searched our car at the remote border crossing just to hassle us I think.

[guildofevil]

Thanks lads. This is going to be a good trip!

Séan

[chazwicke]

Enjoy and please give us a full report when you return.

[guildofevil]

Well, I´m in Vienna now... thankfully.

I can´t say I liked Prague. Stuff was generally cheaper than in Dublin (Not hard. One of the most expensive cities in the world, believe it or not) but it just felt like we were haemoraging money everywhere we went. Everything seemed like it was set up to bleed the tourist and no one ever sait "Thank you".

I did get to tour the Staropramen brewery and we were lucky in that we were the only two people for that particular english tour. As a result we got to go into the lagering cellars, etc. but I came away feeling kind of cold about the whole thing.

The problem was when the guide pointed out the office where the two guys who ran the pace worked. We were looking through glass at the two blokes who sat at keyboards and made the automated bewery spit out 10 batches of 96,000Hl (IIRC) of beer per day, worked and it just seemed so clinical and souless.

There was a rather nice little brewbub we went to though. Cheeky buggers; we sat down at a bench in the beer gaden and they just landed two glasses of beer infront of us, without asking. Bloody nice beer though.

I can´t rememer the name right now but I will get it, because they are rather unusual in my opinion. They only sell one beer and it´s a dark beer. It´s a very nice dark beer, perhapse a little on the on the malty side of ballanced but not as much so as normal czech dark beers. But only one beer?! How can they get away with that?

Anyway. I need to go to bed.

We had a great night out in Vienna and I will tell you about it in the fullness of time.

The enevitable mistakes I have made in this post are due to a combination of beer, tiredness, lack of english spelcheck facilities, and the damn german language keyboard with the keys in the wrong place!

Prost.

[megaschnauzer]

to hear your report. we are going to prague in 3 weeks and i have the feeling it will be very touristy. being from florida, i want to avoid tourists. my goal is to get to prague, spend a day or 2 seeing the sights, then head out of town. is there any place you recommend not seeing? i'm anxious to hit a lot of the beer gardens and microbreweries from the websites given by patto1ro. did you try the absinthe?

[zoom6zoom]

I hear that absinthe makes the heart grow fonder...

[chazwicke]

Originally posted by zoom6zoom
I hear that absinthe makes the heart grow fonder...

The Absinthe that is available in Europe is not like the stuff you've read about.

[megaschnauzer]

modern drunkard magazine has advertisements and articles all the time about authentic absinthe. i agree that it's not the same as the stuff of legend and at $200 a bottle i won't be trying it anyway. i might try making it at home.

i will be going through munich on my way to prague. is octoberfest worth visiting or is it out of control like mardi gras?

[Sladek]

Originally posted by guildofevil
Well, I´m in Vienna now... thankfully.

I can´t say I liked Prague.

There was a rather nice little brewbub we went to though. Cheeky buggers; we sat down at a bench in the beer gaden and they just landed two glasses of beer infront of us, without asking. Bloody nice beer though.

I can´t rememer the name right now but I will get it, because they are rather unusual in my opinion. They only sell one beer and it´s a dark beer. It´s a very nice dark beer, perhapse a little on the on the malty side of ballanced but not as much so as normal czech dark beers. But only one beer?! How can they get away with that?



I'm sorry you didn't like Prague. I've never had the experience of a tourist, as I live here. The brewpub you speak of is U Fleku. Very old, typical tourist place. I've never been there because of this fact alone. Plunking down an unsolicited beer is standard practice in old-style Czech pubs. They also usually give you another without asking. It's too bad I didn't see thread before your trip, I could have sent you to some great pubs, like Pivovarsky Dum (brewpub, possibly my favorite Czech pilsner, which is unfiltered and unpasteurised, of course--look at my avatar), and Prazdroj (PU) tankovny (Prazdroj drawn, unpasteurised, from big tanks).

Absinthe? Tastes like Scope mouthwash. Stay away from that and have Becherovka.

[Sladek]

schnauzer--I've had a look at the Prague pubs in the link posted by patto1r0, and defintely check out U Pinkasu for unpasteurised, tank-drawn Prazdroj; the food is good, the beer isn't too expensive, but the service is typical. Definitely go to Pivovarsky Dum! My favorite beer. They have some funky beers like coffee, banana, stinging nettle (green, but interesting), and seasonals like Rye (last winter--the only rye beer in the Czech Republic. It was absolutely heavenly), and a summer Hefeweizen. But their flagship pilsner is the best. I hope you like pilsners! Another pub I like is a Krusovice tankovna which serves this pilsner from a tank, so again it's unpasteurised and rather tasty. You have to ask for the "desitka", or 10-degree, which is called Musketyr. Here's a link:
http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2004/Art/1118/restview.php

[patto1ro]

Anyone visiting Prague should definitely drop by U medvídků. The pub has always been pretty good, serving Budvar for decades. They stuck with air pressure dispense when many were going over to CO2.

Now they've added a brewery. They brew using open fermenters, horizontal wooden lagering vessels and the Pilnser Urquell yeast strain. Their beer - an amber lager - sounds very interesting. Their website is:

http://www.umedvidku.cz/

I've added a few more places to my Prague guide in the last couple of days. There are 3 more brewpubs: U medvídků, Pivovarský Dům and Pivovar u Bulovky. Another old favourite of mine, U Černého vola, appears for the first time.

[megaschnauzer]

i can't wait to get there!

[Sladek]

Originally posted by patto1ro
Anyone visiting Prague should definitely drop by U medvídků. The pub has always been pretty good, serving Budvar for decades. They stuck with air pressure dispense when many were going over to CO2.

Now they've added a brewery. They brew using open fermenters, horizontal wooden lagering vessels and the Pilnser Urquell yeast strain. Their beer - an amber lager - sounds very interesting. Their website is:

http://www.umedvidku.cz/

Jesus, where have I been?! I know exactly where U Medviku is, I pass by it frequently. F@#! it--I'm goin', that's all there is to it, I'm f@!kin' goin'.

[chazwicke]

Originally posted by megaschnauzer
did you try the absinthe?

The Green Fairy

There is one word that strikes terror into even the most hardened Baccanalian - absinthe. A mysterious aura haunts this concoction - no other drink has managed to acquire such a fearsome reputation.

Sure, there are some other drinking rituals around that appear to be superficially comparable - going head to head on a bottle of mezcal in a Mexico City cantina, or being dosed with the infamous "eight gins in a glass" at a well-known medical training establishment near London Bridge can both produce striking results in all but the most accomplished drinkers. Yet these practices pale in comparison when one considers the long and often hair-raising history of absinthe.

Artemisia Absinthium

In 1792, Dr Pierre Ordinaire wrote a recipe for a drink containing a variety of essential oils, including an extract of wormwood (Artemisia absinthium). The undiluted product contained anywhere between 60 - 85% alcohol, and the obvious effect of this potency was compounded by the presence of a chemical in the wormwood, called thujone.

There have been various studies of this peculiar substance over the years, and it is generally agreed that it does possess certain psychoactive qualities. Whether these manifest themselves after one sip of the drink or not until one has become a hardened enthusiast is somewhat contentious, but I think it is safe to say that the intoxication the stuff encourages is certainly unusual.

Artists Favourite

Towards the end of the 19th century, absinthe had found favour with the artistic community in Europe, and it is their colourful if shocking legacy that is responsible for the reputation of the drink today. Gauguin and Van Gogh are probably the two most famous absinthists.

Gauguin's diary reports how, when under the influence of La Fee Verte (the green fairy, a curiously affectionate term for absinthe at the time) Van Gogh chased him down the street brandishing a razor, until Gauguin managed to stare him out. Later that night, Van Gogh famously cut off his own ear.

Other notable fans included Degas (whose L'Absinthe is probably the best known painting of absinthe drinkers, featuring as it does a man and woman sitting in a café, looking distinctly the worse for wear), the poet Rimbaud (who shot his lover and fellow absinthist Verlaine under the influence) and Hemmingway, whose writing perhaps sums up best the devil-may-care bravura that regular drinking encouraged, "Got tight last night on absinthe. Did knife tricks."

Mental Illness

Absinthe was banned across most of Europe at the start of the 20th century after connections were made between consumption and mental illness. After this point, absinthe was made wormwood-free, and brands such as Pernod (named after the founder of one of the original absinthe distilleries) hit the scene. It was not until 1990 that a Czech distiller, Radomil Hill began production of the genuine article again.

Hill's Absinth is the market-leading brand, and the one you are most likely to encounter, either as a cocktail ingredient or served in the Czech style - sugar and absinthe are ignited in a spoon and then added to a glass containing more of the stuff, which is then doused with water.

Recently a new brand has hit the market, La Fée, which features a stronger aniseed flavour than the Czech variety, and is served in the French style - a distinctive spoon supporting a sugar cube is place over a glass containing the absinthe, and then water is poured slowly over the sugar so it dissolves into the drink.

Absinthe is clearly here to stay - its adoption by notable mixologists such as Dick Bradsell and Douglas Ankrah have guaranteed its credibility, and a new wave of celebrity imbibers including Johnny Depp (who apparently fuelled his performance in Sleepy Hollow with the stuff), Eminem and Damien Hirst will no doubt play their part in the second Absinthe Age.

Just remember the words of Emile Zola when you're considering your third glass of the evening, "Boche had known a joiner who had stripped himself stark naked in the Rue Saint-Martin and died doing the polka - he was an absinthe drinker."

Check out www.eabsinthe.com.

[Sladek]

Originally posted by patto1ro
Anyone visiting Prague should definitely drop by U medvídků. The pub has always been pretty good, serving Budvar for decades. They stuck with air pressure dispense when many were going over to CO2.

Now they've added a brewery. They brew using open fermenters, horizontal wooden lagering vessels and the Pilnser Urquell yeast strain. Their beer - an amber lager - sounds very interesting. Their website is:

http://www.umedvidku.cz/
I want to bump this, as I've finally gone and checked out U Medvidku's brewery. It is really tiny, two cute tiny kettles. For anyone who wants to go there, go way to the back on the ground floor and take the stairs up. The beer, OldGott, is only up there.

And wonderful beer it is. Overpriced at 48Kc/.5 liter, but one of the best I've had in Prague. Amber, 13-degree, with lovely head, not overly carbonated (drawn by CO2? Seems not), sweet, malty and yeasty (it's unfiltered), then mild bitterness at the end. A nice balance, I thought.

Apparently they also do a strong beer, the latest version called X-33.

Currently in production is the brewery's follow-up, the X-33, made at 33° Balling and expected to arrive at 12.5 percent to 13 percent ABV. It will take seven months of lagering and more than a little magic to get the beer to produce that much alcohol, according to brewer Ladislav Veselý.

Here's an article about the brewery and this beer:
Prague's newest microbrewery cranks out the strong stuff (http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2006/Art/0105/featu2.php)