Welcome to Benesov to Zeliv - A blog about Prague and the Czech Republic's beer culture.

From the tasty brews at the Ferdinand brewery in Benesov to the only genuine monk made beers in Zeliv, most of the country's best beers can be found in the capital. Combined with a whole new brew pub scene, rotating tap bars and top notch food, i reckon it's the best place in Europe to drink beer.

I'm not a big on tasting notes, history and the like, there are plenty of blogs around dealing with that and to be honest i'm not quite knowledgable enough about that yet.
I love Czech pubs, food, the easygoing nature of the places and people and fortunately the beer scene is improving day by day, so it's a pretty exciting time to write about beer.

This blog is really a companion for an exhaustive website im compiling about Prague beer and a hoped for pub crawl of the city, coming soon.


Na Zdravi

Monday 8 March 2010

Kladno via salford

Having toyed with the idea for a while, i finally got of my bottom and made the short journey to Kladno and the new brewery of U Kozliku.

A 40 minute journey from Dejvice and i arrived at the small town, best known for it's heavy industry.
Fortunately i was pleasantly surprised at the old town, with it's large square, very attractive town hall and church, a scattering of old churches and even a play area next to the small castle for some bears, which must have been hiding from the intense cold.
Midday and time for some ale and a decent meal, resisting the kebab stands, which were everywhere and looked pretty tasty.
I had been tipped off the brewery was actually in a kind of Herna ( gambling bar ), but didn't quite expect what i found.
As i entered the sport herna, i was engulfed by the stench of smoke, but somehow the smell of fresh beer was even stronger and confirmed i was in the right place.
All of the local characters were out in force, from the workers on lunch, to unemployed blokes on their 5th Gambrinus and even one female in the mix somewhere. I felt like i was back in Salford, England!
Fortunately in Czech, the worse that will happen is a curious stare as a foreigner works his way through the homemade ales, while they drink the awful Gambrinus( despite being 1kc more expensive ).
As for the beers, well a real mix. First i started with the standard desitka light beer which looked pretty nice, but after a while was a little boring. Then a dark which i suspected of being a Kozel, which was also on sale, not brilliant. The food was amazingly cheap at 50kc for the main, although 4 dumplings and 3 tiny slivers of pork in a watery sauce was probably the reason why.
However, things picked up as the mini skirted waitress brought over the stronger 14 degree beer, soon followed by the honey special and finally the 12 degree light. These were pretty damn good, reminding me of the beers from Kacov quite a lot, i could easily of downed a few more at prices ranging from 20kc-25kc, as plenty of locals were still doing at 2pm.
However, i fancied a stroll and soon came across a pub selling Bakalar, a decent brewery from nearby Rakovnik. Bar Madly appered to be brand new and was very nice, good service, Guinness on tap and a decent Bakalar 12 light finished the day off very nicely. A quick detour saw me notch up a classic commie statue outside a stately building and plenty of buses back to Prague.

Definately a classic trip, nice old town, dodgy pub with decent brews at very decent prices and back home by 3.30pm.