IT'S the most wonderful time of the year again for us beer lovers, when the effervescent pilsners and lagers of the warmer months now transition into darker, stronger brews – chiefly ales, porters, stouts and barley wines for these colder and longer nights.
Roll out the barrel. After a hiatus of two years since the last Czech ‘Beer Day’ due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the annual event saw a healthy turnout on its return this September to the grounds of the embassies of the Czech and Slovak republics in London’s Notting Hill.
It could be described as “Czech Mate” for Euroboozer, a leading UK importer of fine speciality craft brewed beers, which has teamed up with CzechTrade’s London branch to showcase the best of the Czech Republic's beer wares in 2019 next month.
Based in Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire, Euroboozer is organising a number of events around the annual 'Czech Beer Day' - being held this year on 19 June - at the Czech Embassy in London’s Notting Hill - that illustrates the breadth and diversity of beer production across the central eastern European country.
Roll out the barrel! Simply said, great beer comes from a great country. Now whilst some might disagree as to which nation is the ‘World Champion’ when it comes to produces the best beer - lager, ale or call it what you will, the Czech Republic is certainly up there with the best of them.
The Germans will naturally claim that their beer can be considered the best and especially so around the Oktoberfest, while Belgium’s output cannot be discounted for its rich variety of beers with over a thousand different beers including Belgian Abbey beers.
Twelve different companies from across the Czech Republic showcased their wares - from crystal glass to whisky - at the Hotelympia 2018 event at the ExCel exhibition venue in London’s Docklands this March, in an effort to promote and expand into the UK market.
The project initiative and planning, which was led in conjunction with CzechTrade UK, had started “six months ago” before the event according to Monica Slaba, an exhibitor and key account manager at J&T Wood (www.jtwood.cz) from Šumperk in the Olomouc region in northern Moravia.
Eight skilled men, wearing dusty dungarees, stand around the giant wooden barrel. Big enough to hold over 7,000 pints of beer, they’ve spent two months building it; selecting the Czech-grown oak, carving it into perfect curves, piecing it together stave by stave, crashing heavy hammers down on the seven-foot structure. This team of brewery coopers – the last left in Central Europe – build and maintain wooden barrels for Pilsner Urquell, the brewers of the world’s first golden lager in 1842.
