Zatec put a spring in my step

Attentive readers will recall that, earlier this year, I reported on the activities of Rolf Munding in the Czech Republic.

Rolf, a British businessman with Scandinavian parents, took me to the Velke Popovice brewery near Prague, where Kozel beers are brewed: they are sold in bottle in Wetherspoon's pubs in Britain.

Rolf also showed me a building site in the town of Zatec. He had bought and was refurbishing the town's brewery and invited me back when the work was complete.

Six months later, the Zatec Brewery is in full production and is making three golden lager beers. Rolf and his team are selling beer locally as well as in Prague, and plan to export to Britain, where he has interests in restaurants.

The Czech Republic is famous throughout the world as the country where golden lager was first brewed in Pilsen in the middle of the 19th century. The impact of the beer called Pilsner Urquell, which means "original source of Pilsner", not only had a profound impact worldwide but also changed the course of beer-making in its homeland.

Before the arrival of Pilsner, Czech brewers produced brown and black beers, made with both barley and wheat. Today there are still a few black beers, but they account for only 1% of beer sales.

The emphasis is on golden beers, produced in breweries modelled on Pilsen. There has been a brewery on the site in Zatec for 1,000 years but the present complex, built on the ruins of a castle and alongside the city walls, dates from the early 19th century.

Today, copper vessels, installed in the 1860s, are linked together to produce beer in the classic Czech fashion. Malt is heated in stages in two coppers to ensure the full conversion of starch to fermentable sugar. The sweet extract is then filtered in a third vessel known as a lauter tun before being boiled with hops in a fourth copper. The brewery uses pure, soft water that has filtered through sandstone in the surrounding hills, fine malt from Moravia, and has access to some of the finest hops in the world.

Zatec is more than just a town. It is a major hop-growing region. The hops are named after the town but are better known by their German name of Saaz: the region was once part of the German-speaking Sudetenland.

Zatec hops give a delightful resiny, floral and citrus lemon character to beer. The house yeast culture at Zatec also adds an unmistakable hint of banana, most unusual in a lager: it is a characteristic usually associated with German wheat beers.

The Zatec beers are 3.9%, 4.6% and 5%. After primary fermentation in open vessels, they are lagered or cold conditioned at just above freezing point for 21, 30 and 45 days respectively.

Lagering takes place in tanks stacked horizontally in deep underground cellars.

Czech brewers believe that horizontal tanks are important to the finished taste of the beer: the slow secondary fermentation leaves some malt sugars behind that help create a fullness of palate often missing from beers conditioned in upright conical vessels, where fermentation is faster.

The 3.9% beer has a pronounced lemon citrus aroma and palate from the hops, a quenching palate and a lemon fruit and malt finish with a hint of banana. The 4.6% beer has the most pronounced banana aroma and flavour, balanced by creamy, slightly toasted malt, lemon fruit from the hops, and a long malty/hoppy finish.

The 5% beer has a big hop aroma with juicy, biscuity malt and lemon jelly from the hops, with floral hops in the mouth and a pronounced lemon fruit finish. This was my favourite of the three, but Rolf Munding is minded to choose the 4.6% beer for export to Britain.

The beers certainly have remarkable qualities. In a restaurant in Zatec, where I enjoyed the beers and a good meal with Rolf and his colleagues, I was agreeably surprised to find a young, attractive blonde woman beckoning to me from her table.

When I went over, she asked me if I would like to dance. If Zatec beers can make a man at least twice her age appear a suitable dancing partner, then they will perform well in the export market.

Personally, I'm cutting out beer while I concentrate on my dancing lessons.

www.protzonbeer.com