GBBF: Budvar at the festival
It's fitting that Josef Tolar will be a lonely representative of foreign lager among English cask ale experts when he joins the Champion Beer of Britain judging panel at this year's Great British Beer Festival (GBBF).
Tolar is the legendary brewmaster from Budvar, perennial outsiders of the beer world. Budvar is highly unusual in being a European bottom-fermented beer embraced by conservative ale campaigners.
It has been waging an infamously fierce tradesmark dispute against American giant Anheuser-Busch for more than 100 years. The Czech brewer also stirred up the brewing scene at home more recently with a controversial 'Ten Commandments' campaign that threatened fire and brimstone to brewing countryfolk it claims are damaging Czech brewing practices through integration with multi-nationals.
Budvar's willingness to speak up for traditional principals hints at the reason why the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) allows this lager into its ranks.
Tolar, who describes the invitation to join the panel as "surprising, an unusual chance to be involved at such a big event", describes how CAMRA first befriended Budvar.
"It was in the early 1990s," he recalls. "The Czech government was considering selling off Budvar, privatising. Plus we had our long-term dispute with Anheuser-Busch. It was very encouraging at that time that CAMRA wrote a letter to Václav Havel [then-president of Czechoslovakia] asking for Budvar not to be sold because it would kill its special position.
"It was very surprising that people from Britain, foreigners who were not in near contact with the Czech beer industry, tried to influence the president. From that time on, I have had a lot of contact with CAMRA."
Believing in regionality
CAMRA, for its part, admires Budvar's belief in regionality. Tolar will be in agreement with his fellow panel members that such deals as the Scottish & Newcastle/Heineken merger are a bad thing.
"It's a pity," he says. "When people are brewing to international standards, it gives less room for specificity. When integrated, that leaves less room for specific processes which would have higher costs. It means one way, one product, one quality and I'm not sure that's the best quality. What consumers need is variability of products."
Budvar's brewmaster is hopeful that the consolidation tide can be arrested, though. He points to Japan and America as countries where "there have been very intensive concentration down to several producers only".
"What was the result? The movement towards small microbreweries was started and has obtained interesting proportions. That is not by chance," he says.
And what of the British beer industry and his role at GBBF? Tolar says he is envious of what he sees as "broad variability of regional products" in English cask beer.
He will be sipping a huge array of these regional products when he takes on the familiar role of outsider at Earl's Court. So what will he be looking for when judging?
"My voice will be taken as one from the other side of the river, meaning I have not been educated by British customs. Nevertheless, I am a consumer as well. My view will be based on the drinkability of the beer," he says.
