Czech it out
There is a Czech beer out there for everyone. Ben McFarland runs the rule over some of the imports taking the UK beer market by storm.
When it comes to drinking beer, the Czechs have few rivals. In fact, they have none. The Czechs drink more beer than any other nation in the world.
The East Germans had previously sported the beer-drinking crown but when the comparatively restrained West Germans arrived in 1989, they reluctantly handed over the title to their Czech neighbours.
Every Czech drinks, on average, 159 litres of beer every year. This works out at approximately one pint per person, per day, for the entire population.
This will come as no surprise among those fortunate enough to visit the Czech Republic, however. As the Iron Curtain went up on communism more than a decade ago, so did the eyebrows of beer lovers in the West and it didn't take long before tourists were flocking to Prague and elsewhere to savour the country's great beers at great prices.
It is no surprise, either, that having been neglected (or gratefully untouched depending on how you see it) for some time, Czech brewers have embraced capitalism wholeheartedly and two of the biggest have been taken over by international brewers.
In the mid-1990s, Bass acquired Staropramen while SAB Miller more recently snapped up Pilsner Urquell and both, along with the state-owned Budweiser Budvar, are frantically flying the flag for Czech beers in the UK.
Pilsner Urquell is the original lager and prior to its creation, all beers were dark and cloudy. In 1842, October 5 to be exact, the world's first golden beer was brewed using the lager method in the town of Pilsen, hence the name.
Unsurprisingly, a great deal is made of its status as the "Pilsner from the original source" and a recent advertising campaign in trendy parts of London underlined as much.
It's all part of distributor Ubevco's grand masterplan to establish Pilsner Urquell among the front runners in a thriving specialist beer category. The brand is developing a strong presence at outlets where a premium is placed on authenticity and heritage.
There are some, however, who fear Pilsner Urquell's recent decision to brew under licence in Poland - albeit solely for the Polish market - undermines Pilsner's otherwise reliable credentials.
But for the time being the Pilsner Urquell drunk in the UK remains the genuine article.
The same cannot be said for rival brand Staropramen.
Following the break-up of Bass and Staropramen's move to Interbrew, the draught Staropramen drunk in the UK is now brewed not in Prague but in Lancaster, much to the dismay of purists.
Matthew King, marketing controller for Staropramen in the UK, said: "Before taking the decision to brew draught Staropramen in the UK we undertook research which stated that drinkers are more concerned with product quality and taste than brewing provenance.
"With so many standard and premium lager brands brewed under licence in the UK, there isn't an expectation that draught products are brewed in their country of origin."
Rival brand Budweiser Budvar begs to differ and has placed its brewed at source credentials at the forefront of all its marketing.
Since setting up a UK subsidiary and taking up the UK distribution reins from BB Supply nearly two years ago, Budweiser Budvar has done much to shed its image as merely a David to Anheuser-Busch's American Bud Goliath.
Earlier this year, Budvar became the first lager to join the ale-dominated Cask Marque quality scheme and more recently received further support from the real ale fraternity in its battle to remain a state-owned brewery.
In August, CAMRA launched a "Keep Budvar Czech" campaign amid fears that the cash-strapped Czech government was poised to sell off the lucrative state-owned business. In light of the brand's on-going spat with Anheuser-Busch, John Harley, chief executive of Budvar UK, believes the American brewer would be first in line.
"Really, there's probably only one company that would definitely be interested in buying the business and that would be Anheuser-Busch.
"If it did succeed in purchasing it the Budvar brewery would be shut down within two years."
It seems that, for the time being at least, Budvar's future is safe after Bohuslav Sobotka, the Czech minister of finance, assured drinkers earlier this month that the current government has no immediate plans to privatise Budvar.
Another Czech beer of note is Kozel and while few will have heard of it, thanks to a long-running listing in the Wetherspoon chain around two million pints are drunk in the UK every year.
The brewery was recently taken over by SAB Miller, but the beer is imported by Aristolend Ltd, a company owned by Rolf Munding, a British entrepreneur, restaurateur and former Prague resident.
Rolf clinched the lucrative deal with JD Wetherspoon after meeting Tim Martin on a train travelling to Cornwall. SAB Miller recently took over the brand but, according to Rolf, concerns that it might tinker with the brand have proved unfounded.
However he is currently urging the new owner to change the bottle size from 500ml to 330ml in order to compete more effectively in the premium packaged lager (PPL) sector.
With his hands somewhat tied with Kozel - which means "goat" - Rolf turned his attentions elsewhere and in 2001 he bought the Zatec (pronounced Jhatets) brewery in the north of the Czech republic.
Rolf has invested heavily in the historic brewery and having re-established the Zatec name as a local hero in the Czech Republic, he has made inroads into the UK style bar sector with a 4.4 per cent ABV version.
"The British lager drinker is finally realising that Czech lagers are a different class to other European lagers," he said. "If licensees are going to stock brews then they should stock a Czech lager as they're the guys that invented it."
Pictured: Prague has great beers, great prices and pretty good dumplings.
