Czech microbrewing: Changes afoot in the land of lager

It started 20 years ago with the fall of communism in the Czech Republic. And ended, no less dramatically by all accounts, with a man taking his first tentative sip of ale at a beer festival in Pilsen.

"His eyebrows nearly lifted off his head. He turned back to the bar and could only string together the words, 'What, how, what? How have they done this? What is this? It's remarkable'," says beer importer Mike Cole.

You can't really blame the good citizens of Pilsen, birthplace of Pilsner lager, for being a tad surprised by a pint of BrewDog Punk IPA. If you're brought up in a country where the only beer on offer is lager, a sip of one of the most bitter IPAs you can get was always going to be a bit of a shock.

Czechs, the biggest beer drinkers in the world per capita, may know a thing or two about lager. But until now, they've not known much at all about speciality beers.

Variety explosion

When communism fell in 1989, there was just one microbrewery in a country dominated by state-owned brewers whose remit back then was to produce cheap lager for the masses.

A generation later and with an influx of tourism both in and out of the country giving people a taste of unusual beers from abroad, the number of Czech brewers and beer varieties has exploded.

There are now over 100 specialist beer producers in the country, making anything from coffee lager to cherry-flavoured porters. However, combined they account for less than five per cent of the country's beer output.

And with some of the country's most pioneering brewers getting ready to export their wares across the globe from January, it's a number that's set to grow. Something that can only be helped by the fact that a couple of them have secured collaborations with some of the world's most high profile craft brewers.

"In the 1990s the number grew slowly. Back in 1999 there were fewer than 30 of them," says Frantisek Frantik, editor-in-chief of the journal for the Czech Research Institute of Brewing and Malting.

He adds that most microbreweries were founded after 2000, and that between three and five new ones open each year.

Production is small, with the average producing around 1000 hectolitres per year, but there are a number increasing their scale dramatically.

"Under communism, everything was centrally planned," he says. "Now brewers can make beer according to their own tastes. Yes, most of our drinkers are used to lagers, but many also want to taste something different, and slowly but surely they are accepting such unusual beers."

Prague's pioneering drinkers

Prague's bright young things certainly are. The capital is a city where it seems any bar you stumble across is branded down to the last toothpick or loo brush by lager big-boys such as Staropramen and Pilsner Urquell.

Yet two months ago the licensee of city centre bar Zly Casy (Bad Times) opened the city's first specialist beer shop next door to the pub. Pivotéku offers over 400 beers from Europe and America.

"It's fantastic. There is a renaissance of people who want something different," says Cole, the man responsible for confusing and delighting Czech taste buds with 'exotic' beers from abroad.

Cole set up his Czech-based beer import business, Odddog, with his wife a year ago and supplies to both bars and the beer enthusiasts. Shipments of beer from Scottish brewer BrewDog, Norway's Nøgne Ø and Denmark's Mikkeller regularly sell out on Odddog's website.

Odddog also takes the beers to the growing number of microbrewery beer festivals. This year marked the third Slunce Ve Skle festival hosted by the Purkmistr brewery in Pilsen. BrewDog's Punk IPA sold out within three hours.

"Czech tastes have changed. It is incredible how it is accelerating," he says, adding that craft beers are slowly infiltrating the country's bars.

"Many have been tied to the big brewers on five-year contracts. They give them a cash injection or cellar equipment to take their brands.

"People are starting to realise they need to change or they'll go under and are contacting us and adding a tap that constantly rotates from craft brewers from all over the republic. It sparks people's interest."

Home-grown talent

Alongside a thirst for beers from abroad is a thirst for home grown brewing talent. Under the communist regime, travel was limited. But many of the Czech Republic's microbrewers have been inspired to brew after experiencing ales, wheat beers, porters, stouts and IPAs abroad.

Martin Matuska owns the Matuska Brewery in the tiny village of Broumy, 40km from Prague. He has been all over the world as a brewer, including to the US. But he uses centuries-old traditions such as decoction, to remove the sugar from two-row barley, to produce the newer beer styles. You can look decoction up if you're interested, but I'd recommend taking my word for it that it's both time-consuming and complicated.

"He is following those traditions but at the same time flying in the face of all of them by producing things like IPAs and Californian-style pale ales," says Cole. "He's a bit of an enigma, really.

"He has got the other two pubs in his village serving IPA. And people are happy to pay the equivalent of £1.50 for it instead of around 50p for lager. It's just incredible. It's an absolute revolution."

Then there's the Kocour Brewery, which in English translates as Tom Cat. Unlikely as it sounds, the beers the company produces have been heavily influenced by partner Honza Koãka's other career as an air steward, and subsequent involvement with the American beer scene. But God help anyone taking a 12-hour flight after a few bottles of Odell's 10 per cent Saboteur.

UK availability

Odddog is now working with Matuska and Kocour to export their beers in both bottles and using disposable Key Kegs. It is both brewers' specialist lagers, particularly their black lagers, that will be pushed in the UK from January. With black lager currently enjoying something of a fashion moment, that's great news for pubs.

Trail-blazing Prague bar and microbrewery company PIVO Praha, which owns the Pivovarsky Dum bar, is also currently searching for an importer to bring its array of weird and wonderful beers, such as its 11 per cent top-fermented smoked beer, Grodziskie, to the UK.

But it is perhaps BrewDog's impending collaborations with both Matuska and Kocour that are going to give Czech beer real prominence over here. Insert your jokes about BrewDogs and Tom Cats here.

"Traditional Czech beers are amazing, but that other beers are happening over there is quite cool," says James Watt, BrewDog's managing director. "We want to make something that is almost an evolution of a Czech beer - we want to make a Czech pilsner but with some American hops and with our influence and insanity thrown in for good measure."

Clearly, craft Czech beer is enjoying a boom time. But it has to be remembered this is a beer scene very much in its infancy. At the moment Matuska is trialing bottle conditioning, which will be essential if it is to export its beers successfully. Kocour has just doubled the size of its brewery to produce 2,000-litre batches and is busy getting used to the new equipment.

These may seem like baby steps to more established brewers yet these are advances that would have been unthinkable just five years ago. And as the man with the sky-high eyebrows demonstrates, that's pretty remarkable.

The beer revolution

PIVO Praha​

Prague-based bar and microbrewery Pivovarsky Dum opened its doors in April 1998, and carved a name for itself with its own classic, unfiltered, unpasteurised light and dark Czech lagers. But it was its flavoured beers that really caused a stir and it has now brewed over 50 different beers.

"We were the first in the Czech Republic to start production of flavoured beers, stouts and ales," says