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

Sunday 20 June 2010

Just plain odd

Imagine a pub with upto 21 small micro beers on tap. Where I have feasted on the likes of Zeliv Castalus, Forman Velichov, Shlenkerler Rauchbier for 33kc and many others. Where the decor oozes pivo and obscure brewery paraphanalia. Is a stone throw from uber beer joints like Merenda, U Sadu and the likes. So why the fuck do I hate going there and have decided to boycott the place?

Well, no longer had i tried to write a fully up to date description of the new uber rotating pub in the Prague suburb of Zizkov on my Prague pub guide, then it went and changed it's bloody name again.
Remembered by long termers as U radnice, recently Beer club 300 and now, well today at least, known as Svet Piva ( world of beer ) via about 5 name changes in 3 years. What the hells going on?

It doesn't end there, it's also had about 5 house beers in that time, ranging from the now defunct Podkovan, via Kout and some others I forgot to the currently favoured Konrad. Small beers have gone from normal price, to expensive, to not exisiting and now back to just plain expensive. There was even a time i saw a small beer for 1kc ( about 2euro cent ) less than a large one!!!

Then there's the staff, well bloody awful would be kind, even by Prague standards. Uninterested, unknowledgable and sometimes slightly threatening, that's the hangover from this being a former Sparta Prague ( the Nazi type team ) fans' pub.
The owner is still the same as back then, he seems to be playing at the beer thing and competing with the much better Zly Casy.

The atmosphere while slightly improved from the old days and i've had some ok sessions, it's still unbearably quiet with the occasional crap programme on tacky Nova TV ( no surprise there ).

A scoopers pub that doesn't give a toss about scoopers, I know others who refuse to go there, i'm afraid a whole new set of improvements will need to be made for this pub to be what it's arrogant owner seem to think it is.

1) Completely new, young staff with an ounce of beer knowledge.
2) Either decent TV or some bloody music to avoid that awful eerie quietness.
3) Small beer prices that encourage the whole point of the pub, that's trying as many great beers as possible.
4) Cheaper prices, the beers have gone up recently, no need.
5) Stop changing the fuckin name!


Note: As I write it's changed to none smoking and has a new sister pub underneath, jesus.
Extra note: Now seems to be doing pour your own beer taps on the tables, a la 'the pub'.

Svet Piva etc is located at Havlickove Namesti 7, Prague 3.