Prague Then and Now
When first I visited Prague in the late 1990s, beer-wise it was a pretty straight-forward city. Then as now, the dominant brand was Pilsner Urquell, readily found almost anywhere, although I don’t recall it being quite as variable as it sometimes seems today. (Curiously, I noticed higher than normal levels of diacetyl in several of the half-litres I sampled.) If you wanted the freshest Budweiser Budvar in the city, way back before it was available in North America as Czechvar, you went to U Medvidků. And while you might have to search a bit, it wouldn’t take you long to find a Staropramen tap or two.
Beyond that, there was the centuries-old U Flecků with their one brewed-in-house beer, the much-storied Flekovské Tmavé, the modern-style brewpub Pivovarský Dům, opened in 1998 brewing such Czech anomalies as flavoured beers and, then rather famously, an ale fermented by Champagne yeast, plus one or perhaps two other small and long since defunct breweries, the names of which have been lost to the annals of time.
Unsurprisingly, things have changed considerably since.
The city as seen from atop the old town hall
While Pilsner Urquell remains the market leader in the city, if anything even more ubiquitous than it was twenty years ago, and U Medvidků still pours Budvar, beer drinking options in the Czech capital are far more varied and diverse than they once were. Including at the back-in-the-day standard bearers of independence.
The global pandemic was able to do what over 500 years of history had not, which was to prompt U Flecků to add a second beer to its line-up. The not quite three year old Flekovské Světlé is a pale lager with a grainy-floral aroma and a moderately bitter body that finishes just a bit too sharply, a decent enough quaffer, but not a patch on the distinctively earthy, dark chocolaty Tmavé. And Pivovarský Dům is now Pivovarský Dům Benedict, still brewing a few beers of its own, but focusing more on those from the Břevnovský Monastery Brewery located east of the city centre, hence the new Benedict part of its name.
By far the greater change, however, is in the availability of beer from what the Czechs still call microbreweries, by dint of both brewery taps scattered around the city and a new generation of beer bars that crop up with surprising regularity when treading the Prague streets.
For example, a mere five minute walk from my temporary abode in the OREA Hotel Angelo – a very comfortable bargain in the Smíchov district, with rooms starting at not much over $100 even in the height of summer, 2023 – I found Andĕlský Pivovar, a brewery that appears to be extremely micro from the front door, but expands downstairs into a large and comfortable, brick-walled cellar space. Their lightly hazy Andělský Ležák is a tasty, fragrant, and floral světlé, while the slightly confusing Polotmavý Kolagen – brewed with added collagen, if my translation software is to be believed – is a flavourfully fruity-bitter ale that resides at the point where American amber and British ESB meet.
Where flowing water meets flowing beer is Loď Pivovar, a brewery on a sixty year old ship moored near the Štefánikův bridge on Prague’s Vltava river. Renovated and converted into a brewery-restaurant in 2015, Loď could easily be a novelty or a hum-drum tourist attraction, but instead it is an excellent brewery producing one of the finest Tmavés I have ever had the pleasure of sampling, 13º Monarchie, and two almost equally as tasty Světlés, 10º Legie and 12º Republika. (Czech beer savants will understand that the numbers refer to the original gravity of the unfermented wort, and so become slightly stronger as the numbers grow.) Combine those with splendid river views, especially at sunset, and you have a beer destination that should not be missed.
Boat-brewed beer at Loď Pivovar
The taproom of a brewery located just southwest of the city, rather than a brewery proper, Pivovar Hostomice pod Brdy is located not far from Loď and most deserving of a visit. Despite its rough and ever so slightly foreboding exterior, the twin interior rooms are warm, rustic, and inviting, and the beers – a pair of Světlés at 10º and 12º plus a 14º Tmavé, all named Fabián – are all solidly crafted.
If you are of the mind to skip Prague’s some 35 breweries both large and small, you might be tempted to partake of the city’s booming number of beer bars, and here caution is certainly advised. While some, like the twin bars U Kunštátů and Craft Beer Spot, are lovely places where care and attention is given to the beers on offer, others like the pricey Prague Beer Museum exist primarily as tourist traps. With U Kunštátů and its idyllic beer garden located virtually around the corner from the Beer Museum, it seems unfathomable that anyone would knowingly select the latter over the former.
A final new beer development in Prague is the Pilsner Urquell Experience, opened in the late spring of 2023. For an entry fee of about $29, you are taken on a headset-guided tour of not only the history and mechanics of brewing, but also the history of one of the world’s most famous breweries, all ending with beers in the expansive beer hall. Pro tip: If you volunteer for one of the regular beer tapping competitions held in the beer hall, they will allow you to hang on to the beer you poured, thus increasing your allotted number of included beers by one!
