On the hunt for beer in Prague, Czech Republic | Adventure Every Day

This one's for you, @buzzbeergeek. If you are a beer lover (or if you just like fun and awesome Steemians with great content), head over to his blog right away. I lack his knowledge of beer and descriptive vocabulary, but here I will show you a small sampling of what Prague has to offer.

Did I mention that it's also a spectacularly beautiful city?

Like many of our trips, this one started with a stop at the Hard Rock Cafe. The Hard Rock may be the exact opposite of a local pub, but my girlfriend collects their guitar-shaped magnets, and I have to say they are pretty cool. It's nice because every city with a Hard Rock has the same shaped magnet but with a design specific to its city (something an engineery type like me can appreciate). And it's fun to see the music videos they play from a wide range of genres.

Anyways, to the beer. Given the mainstream nature of this place, a macrobrew was to be expected, but that's not a bad thing in Czech. In this case, it was the country's second largest brewery, Staropramen.

I started off with the Černý (Dark). The commercial description from ratebeer.com:

A dark lager with an exceptionally fine taste which is talked about with recognition and admiration. Staropramen Dark is exceptional for its calming, full-bodied, sweetish caramel taste with gentle, hopsy bitterness. It is a taste you will never forget.

It definitely went down smoothly with a side of Die Antwoord's Enter the Ninja. One of my all time favs. Zef style ftw.

Next up was the Ležák (Premium lager):

Pale gold in colour with delicately flowery aromas and a taste in which hop crispness and malty softness combines to highly drinkable effect.

Awolnation's This Kids Not Alright came on. A new one for me but perhaps appropriate in this moment of drinking on an empty stomach at the end of a work and travel day.

Following a discussion with our friendly Nigerian bartender about traveling in Nigeria (perhaps worth a Steemit post by itself), the closing bell rang and we had to give it up for the night.

Sunny skies the next day had me in the mood for a lunchtime indulgence. A riverside restaurant with perfect view of the historic Charles Bridge didn't hurt either.

The only option on draft here was the ever-present Pilsner Urquell from Pilsner Urquell Brewery in the Bohemian city of Plzeň. If you think it's strange that the brewery itself has pilsner in the name, that's because this is the original pilsner. That's right - it's the world's first pilsner, and therefore the inspiration behind a good many of the beers we drink today.

As ratebeer puts it:

It is called the "model of meter" among beers. All other pilsners are a better or worse attempt to copy the original - the first ever Pilsner Urquell. Its unparalleled exceptionality is guaranteed by the same recipe dating from 1842.

It was definitely enjoyable especially in the atmosphere where I had it, but if you are familiar with pilsner beers then you can pretty much imagine how it tastes.

Time to head back the hotel to freshen up before dinner, but first, a drop-in at the local convenience store. And who did we find there but a friendly goat offering some ale?

The Kozel Světlý (Kozel is apparently Czech for male goat) was coming back with me. Always handy to have a beer around when you get a chance to check your crypto investments - either to enhance the potential celebration or to take the edge off the despair. No major movement this time, but the beer was nice anyways.

Has a slightly bitter taste, soft scent and a golden-brown colour. This deeply fermented beer with an alcohol volume content of 4% is suitable especially as a table drink during meals.

If we were to judge on logos alone, this beer would top the charts though.

Having sampled some macrobrews, I was itching to get my hands on something more local and micro. It wasn't meant to be yet, however. Our dinner restaurant had only more of the same.

After dinner, we found a pub with a live band playing on the upstairs balcony. Surely this place would come through. They had a craft beer menu, but it didn't list the country of origin for each. I asked the waiter for something Czech and was recommended the Satan Red.

From the menu:

A top-fermented reddish amber beer, with final fermentation in the bottle, with a harmoniously balanced taste between a creamy and strong aroma, a sweet, fruity flavour with a hint of hops thanks to the dark malt, a mixture of spices and real Satan-yeast.

Great. Just one problem. Do you see it here? Yes, indeed, that black-yellow-red pattern (if that doesn't give it away in itself) says Belgio/Belgien/Belgium on it.

La Republica restaurant, you have great atmosphere, but you have let me down this time.

New day, new opportunities. The Oliva Verde restaurant where we ate dinner was serving the Krušovice Imperial 12° (I think).

This is apparently a Royal brewery dating back to the 16th century, when it received a contract to provide beer to the Austrian emperor. Today, it is owned by (surprise!) Heineken, since 2007.

Krušovice light lager is a product belonging to the Premium group. It has a slight gold colour, a deliciously bitter taste and an excellent foam. Pleasant and significant sharpness is another of its qualities. This product is brewed following a classical technology process which uses the most modern facilities to assure the highest quality. Superior quality Czech malt, natural spring water from the Křivoklát Woods and hops from the Žatec area are used in the production of this beer.

Here we were in the heart of the tourism district at Old Town Square, but the Prague Astronomical Clock Pražský orloj (seen in background here) was better viewed with a beer in hand. Good people watching to be sure.

An after-dinner stroll was necessary to get my stomach to work on digesting that heavy Czech meal of roasted duck, red cabbage and dumplings.

It didn't take long until we were drawn into an alley with a pub playing jazz music. Surely I will find a local microbrew at last, right?

Nope.

Here was good old Krušovice again.

Okay, fine. How about the one called Harmonie?

Wait, what, is this beer green? (Kinda hard to tell in the pic, but it was).

What's going on here? Is St. Patty's Day in June in Prague???

Okay, let's move on.

At last! Finally stumbled into a place that was definitely making their own beer: The Fat Cat Brewery and Pub.

A nice, frosty IPA-style beer served in a chilled, frosty glass. I'm feeling this one. No descriptions available online - you just gotta try it for yourself ;-)

This bar was seriously cool, though, and made all the more cooler with the 90s and 2000s music they were playing. This gave me the chance to see if I still remembered all of the words to Sum 41's Fat Lip. Check.

Almost made me feel like I was 13 again. Oh yeah, I'm drinking a beer though. No, I swear I wasn't drinking when I was 13. Promise! Just rocking out...

For real though, consider adding this one to your list of stops if you are doing a beer tour of Prague.

One beer I saw around town remained a mystery until we got to the airport. That's when we got access to the airport lounge via my new Chase Sapphire Reserve card, my first time getting to use this perk. And man was it awesome! Now I know how that crazy Steemian @knozaki2015 feels on his round-the-world adventures.

Along with lightning-quick internet that allowed me to browse Steemit and watch a baseball game at the same time, this lounge was serving up 3 different brews from Budweiser.

Wait, who? Is this an Anhueser-Busch product? No, can't be, that's not the same cursive script as the Budweiser I know.

Turns out there is a trademark dispute over that name which has been running since 1907. This is the Budweiser Budvar brewery, which markets itself as Czechvar in countries dominated by Anhueser-Busch's Budweiser - the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Brazil and Peru.

Here, of course, it gets to use it's real name. And a few of them before boarding our flight home was quite a nice treat!

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And with that, we were off. A memorable weekend in Prague in the books. Farewell for now, but I have a feeling we will meet again!

Have you tried any beers from Prague? Perhaps some microbrews that I didn't get a chance to? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

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Adventure Every Day is a travel & exploration channel started in 2016. In addition to the Steemit blog, I post short films of my adventures to the Adventure Every Day YouTube channel.