Is Czech Beer The 'Best In The World'...Or Drunken Speculation?

Time is always said to be of the essence, but for the producers of Czech “gold” - beer - they know that it takes the time that other European beer producers fail to allow. This was certainly the impression that those attending this year’s Czech Beer Day in London’s Notting Hill at the Czech and Slovak embassies were left with.

Indeed, beer (or real Czech lager) produced these days in the Czech Republic, a nation that lays claim to producing the world’s first-ever pilsner blond lager - Pilsner Urquell in 1842 - takes between 100 to 200 days to brew - versus typically 10 days for well-known global lager brands and those in Europe.

That bottom-fermented beer from Pilsen (Plzeň) in fact inspired much of the beer produced around the globe today.

Among the largest Czech beer breweries these days are Pilsner Urquell  (Plzeňský Prazdroj), which was owned by SABMiller from 1999 before subsequently being sold (excluding certain geographical areas) to Japanese-based  Asahi Breweries in March 2017. Its stable includes Gambrinus, Velkopopovický Kozel, and the Radegast brands.

Other top breweries are Staropramen, which includes Ostravar, Branik and Velvet, and Budweiser Budvar, the Czech original founded in 1895 and dubbed the “biggest micro-brewery” in the country. Other top selling brands include Bernard, Krušovice, Lobkowicz, Starobrno and Zlatopramen.

Beer, lager, pils or ale, call it what you will. Now the vexed question is which nation produces the best beer in the world. For sure this leads to much debate and there are plenty of beer producing countries, brands and varieties to choose. So, a definitive answer is not exactly straightforward.

Everyone has a view and an axe to grind on this score. The Germans will claim that their beer output can be considered the best, while Belgium’s output cannot be discounted for its rich variety of beers with over a thousand different beers including Belgian Abbey beers, and nor too can the British and Irish. The Danes cannot be discounted either, with Carlsberg being “Probably the best lager in the world” according their adverts.

And, there are more than a few websites that provide a run through of the top beer nations, with views expressed illustrating just how divided opinion is. Some argue that Germany and Canada are better beer brewers than Belgium, but frankly how can one prove it?

If you are looking for the best dark beer in the world, you would not go far wrong with Belgium according to some pundits. For the best pilsner, it is probably the Czech Republic with Germany close, while the best variety might be said to Germany as a whole. But the permutations go on and on.

So, in an effort to shed some light on this matter and find out who shines beer brilliance, the third annual Czech Beer Day this June provided a good venue to get the low down on brewing quality, press the flesh with producers and gauge how great the nation’s beer output actually is.

Organized by Czech Trade U.K., a government agency connecting Czech and British businesses in manufacturing and service sectors, the event this June was the largest and most prestigious showcase of the breadth and diversity of Czech beer in the U.K. to date. Effectively the day served too as a launch platform for the Czech Beer Alliance (CBA).

The first beer day was held in 2016 in a Liverpool hotel, followed by a second one outdoors last year in summer at the Czech ambassador’s residence in North London. Both proved major successes in linking up beer producers and traders with hotel groups, pubs and even casino operators.

The former event had been instrumental in leading to Albert’s Schloss, Manchester’s Bohemian pleasure palace and bierkeller, tying up a deal afterwards to import Czech pilsner lager directly through York-based wholesaler, Pivovar Limited. The latter is involved in importing Bernard, which was also on show at the embassy and started the craft beer revolution in the Czech Republic. It was also a winner recently at the World Beer Awards for “Best Dark Lager.”

Czech Trade has been giving considerable support to the recently incorporated CBA, which in a former guise had been exporting beer since around 2008 and particularly to the Republic of Ireland. Its aim is to introduce small and medium craft brewers to the U.K. and Irish markets.

In Britain, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), a consumer group has been been promoting the sector for many years. Founded in 1971 by four men who were disillusioned by the control of the U.K. beer market by a handful of companies pushing products of “low flavour and overall quality onto the consumer”, these days CAMRA has over 183,000 members across the world and been described as the most successful consumer campaign in Europe.

By contrast, the Czech Beer Alliance, which invested around £30,000 (c.$40,000) into its project, today represents six breweries committed to traditional brewing such as double mashing (grain mixed with water), fermentation in open vessels and long maturation in cellars. The goal is to expand the portfolio going forward.

Current names the Alliance is seeking to promote include: Hubertus (Pivovar Kacov), founded in 1457 and making it one of Europe’s oldest; Permon Craft Brewery; Cvikov Pivovar, which uses water sourced from the Lusatian mountains with a highland heritage; Kutná Hora, a brewery that was shut down by Heineken but restored in 2017 by beer enthusiasts and now exporting to China amongst other markets; Breclav (Zemecky Pivovar), which dates back to 1522; and, Slavkovsky Pivovar.

Libor Sečka, Czech ambassador to the U.K., told the gathering that attracted several hundred people from the beer trade, hotel groups and journalists amongst others: “We are a small country but we are very strong in certain aspects and beer is something we consider ourselves as being a Super Power.”

The ambassador, who hails from the city of Znojmo around the heart of wine growing area in southern Moravia near the Austrian border, added: “The beer is like liquid bread and so precious for us that we say Czech beer like Czech gold.”

Czech Beer Exports

Sečka, who previously served as the Czech Republic's ambassador to China (2009-2015), expressed his hope that there would be “more opportunities” in future to see Czech beer brands on the British market, which in 2016 gulped up 223,097 hectolitres of their global beer exports out. The U.K. accounted for a little over 5% of total Czech beer exports that year.

For 2017 the U.K. ranked as the 4^th top export market behind Slovakia (first), with Poland in second and Germany third - and one spot ahead of Russia in fifth. According to a number of sources, which include the Czech Brewery and Malt Association (2016) and Euromonitor Research, the Czech Republic was recently ranked the seventh largest beer producer in the European Union (EU) with an estimated 1.88 billion litres output in 2016.

The nation's brewery industry employs around 55,000 people these days both directly and indirectly. Of this total, some 7,500 work directly and through support for local farmers (90%-95% of raw materials being derived from within the Czech Republic), with another c.12,500 employed indirectly in the supplier sector and 34,500 in the food service sector (HoReCa).

For its part, The Czech Beer & Malt Association is also supporting efforts to promote the nation’s beer exports, backing Czech beer days worldwide and in particular more recently focussing on exporting Czech beer culture - including pubs and encompassing Czech tank beer appearing throughout Europe, the U.S. and some Asian countries - with China coming up increasingly on the radar.

World’s Top Beer Exporters

Sources: Investopedia, Net Exports Definition; The World Factbook, Field Listing: Exports - Commodities; Wikipedia, Category: Beer brand by country (accessed June 2018).

Martin Macourek, Director of Czech Trade (UK & Ireland) commenting on the steps of the Slovak embassy said: “Czech beer and Czech craft beer - as we call it ‘real’ Czech lager - is unique in many ways. In the same way that real ale is unique to Britain and quintessentially British…real lager is unique to the Czech Republic.”

Dr Filip Celadnik, a London-based commercial lawyer and managing director of the CBA, commenting at the event, revealed: “In the four months since the CBA was formed we have six craft Czech beers our organization’s umbrella, but our aim is to represent ten by the end of this year and twenty by the end of 2019. The over-arching goal and vision is to support small breweries and Czech beers that are the “jewels” if you like.”

Peter Krulis, Celadnik’s partner in this venture, who is based in the Czech Republic on the sales and logistics front, has been exporting beer to Ireland for a number of years - mostly to wholesalers and supermarkets.

“Now we want to expand to the U.K. - including Scotland, which is a big market,” Krulis told me over a glass of Jarosov pilsner larger, a dreamy Bohemian beer with a medium body and dry spicy finish produced in southern Moravia.

For its work on the label’s design, which was conceived by Czech marketing and design agency, Little Greta, based in Prague with office representation in London, Munich and New York, it won two design awards at the 2017 World Beer Awards. That made them the most successful Czech agency at that event.

The brewery from which Jarosov hails has over 300 years of brewing heritage and pursues genuine craft production. The label drew inspiration from botany, folkloric architecture and traditional folklore, with the cockerel motif representing resurrection - embodying the brewery’s return to life - as the brewery had in recent years fallen into something of a limbo.

Among the various exhibitors attending at the Czech embassy - and there were sixteen on hand from small-  and medium-sized regional breweries and micro-breweries from right across the country - one could not miss the big daddy of them all - Budweiser Budvar from České Budějovice, a national treasure and where brewing in the city dates back to 1265.

Petr Dvořák, managing director of Budweiser Budvar, a national corporation and a brewery that effectively belongs to all Czechs, speaking beside ambassador Sečka, said: “Having worked in the brewing industry for around twenty years - fourteen outside the country - I might be biased, but I believe that Czech lager [not all beer necessarily] is the best in the world.” In the U.K. the brand’s growth rate year-on-year stands at around 10%.

The executive who worked for SAB Miller with Pilsner Urquell as Global Brand Director for seven years within export marketing and prior to that with InBev (covering the Czech and Slovakia republics, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia) and Staropramen, told me that a “Czech lager category” should be created, rather like South African wine as a category. Now while Czech pilsner is not an ordinary larger and the category exists, it is nevertheless not official.

In Budvar’s case, its brewing and maturation time is put at 102 days and it only uses whole cone Saaz hops, single malt (a unique strain of Moravian barley) and soft water from what are claimed as “ice age lakes” underneath the brewery.

Zdenek Kudr, managing director of Bohem Brewery, a London-based brewery run by Czech expats, adding to the debate on best beer in the world, said rather diplomatically: “It is, from my point of view. However, there are many different perspectives, which would not necessarily concur with this view.”

Illustrating recent expansion for Bohem, which lays claim to being London’s first Bohemian brewery, they have enlarged their brewery operations with new space in Tottenham, north London, and have witnessed increased sales in the British capital.

Bohem also run a Taproom in the Wood Green area where they sell a range of beers. These include Bohem Victoria, a session pils (ABV 4.2%); Bohem Amos, Czech pilsner (ABV 4.9%) with a floral, citrus aroma; Bohem Sparta (ABV 5.4%) premium amber lager; the full bodied and creamy black lager Bohem Druid (ABV 5.7%); and, the honey lager Bohem Henry (ABV 6.6%).

Martin Dam, a Dane who has previously worked in international markets for ten years for Anheuser-Busch, producers of the American Budweiser and official beer sponsor to the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia and in Qatar (2022), exhibiting the PRAGA brand on the day, said that there is a “great opportunity” for Czech beer exports.

That said, and despite the fact that “everyone knows Prague”, he noted the names of some brands could appear strange and prove difficult in certain markets to gain penetration. “We want to make Czech beer more accessible to the international markets. It’s not just old east Europe,” he said.

PRAGA, which encompasses over 200 years of Czech brewing heritage and offers its flagship brands of Premium pils (4.7% ABV) and Dark lager (ABV 4.5%), is now working with the Brevnov Brewery, which is connected to the Brevnov Monastery that was founded in 993.

Currently making exports to thirty international markets including the U.S., Italy, Denmark, Spain, Sweden and Japan, the company’s Praga Premium Pils and Praga Dark Lager won Gold Medals at the World Beer Awards in 2017.

Matthew Wirtz, an American working since 2014 in Bratislava, Slovakia, who qualified with a degree in hotel, restaurant and recreation from Penn State University, commenting on initiatives in the U.S. to boost beer production and employment, said: “If one looks at the state of Colorado where I worked in IT after graduation, there are today in the region of 350-plus breweries. From an economic standpoint, local brewery development has proved positive in many ways. This is from the taxes it brings in for the state to the employment the industry creates.”

“All of these breweries need employees and usually the bulk of money generated stays in state. And, various studies have shown that the money has largely stayed within the local community,” added Wirtz, who works as a community manager at Slovak blockchain venture DECENT.

“For example, someone at the brewery hires employees to clean the kegs or brew the beer, then these individual go to the grocery store to buy food and other items. Or, the liquor store owner down the street sells the beer they buy in from the brewery to the pub or restaurant. That money stays local.”

The Slovak Scene

Turning to the Slovak brewing industry and efforts to boost craft and regional brewing in a similar vein to the Czechs and the CCBA’s initiative, Wirtz pointed to the Association of Small Independent Breweries in Slovakia (Asociácia malých nezávislých pivovarov Slovenska), which was established in 2009. Back then over 90% of the Slovak beer market was controlled by two transnational brewing giants and the country had only seven small breweries.

In fact, they were becoming something of an endangered species - in contrast to other neighbouring countries were on the up. The association’s main goal has been to support and develop the small breweries in Slovakia and to maintain the diversity of beer tastes, which recently almost disappeared. In 2018 the number of microbreweries in the country tops 70 thanks to their efforts.

“If we had not started to protect them, Slovak customers might have been deprived of the traditional taste of beer brewed in the classic way and of the diversity of tastes for good. And, therefore the Association was established.”

Wirtz, who has also consulted for companies in Austria and Hungary sourcing brewing and food equipment and started a micro-brewery in the Slovak capital a few years ago, speaking on the merits of Czech Craft Beer Alliance’s initiative to push exports further to the British market: “If the quality is good...and certainly the Czech style of Bohemian lagers and their style of making beer is world renowned, then it makes perfect sense. Some of the small producers are really good at their craft. And, from the U.K. wanting this style of beer and wanting it authentic, then there is no better place to get it from.”

No doubt the debate about the best beer in the world will run and run. But whatever else this year’s Czech Beer Day in London’s embassy land in the centenary of the founding of Czechoslovakia’s First Republic went down a storm. Na zdravi!