In a more perfect world, the accumulated experience of one two three beer-oriented trips to Europe in 1995 might count for at least partial credits toward an honorary master’s degree. Then again, this entire narrative is a sort of doctoral thesis about how to stumble into a career in beer, so if any officials from Indiana University Southeast (my alma mater) are reading … my door is always open.
In 1995 the late winter-early spring Doppelbock Viscosity Tour took us to Prague, Plzeň, Munich and Bamberg for classic Bohemian and Bavarian brewing themes. The August excursion to Moravia, Slovakia and Hungary is relayed here. Belgium came in autumn, launching a love affair with that country’s legendary ales. I’m still smitten, three decades later.
The larger point is that I returned from each of these journeys with a far better sense of what a great beer bar should be.
Substantive excerpts from three separate Walking the Dog articles are included here. Much of the text appears as written in 1995, but trimmed, edited and reorganized.
- “Several Thousand Delta Frequent Flier Miles Later”
- “Czech Brewing Esoterica & the Hlučín Micro, 1995”
- “Under a Hungarian Bull’s Blood Red Cask, August 1995”
I didn’t intend to take a second trip to Europe in 1995, but the lure of visiting the Czech Republic in the company of George Hrabčák and Frank Thackeray turned out to be an irresistible temptation. In 1989 I spent a month with George’s parents in Ostrava, and his aunt and uncle in Prague. It was quite enjoyable to meet them all again, especially George’s dad, Vladimir, who simply is an amazing human being (1).
Highlights of “Summer in the Czech Pubs with George” included two very different pub crawls, one in and near Děhylov, the village outside Ostrava where George’s parents now live, and another in urban Prague with Aleš, George’s cousin. But a young microbrewery in the small town of Hlučín also was visited, and I’ll begin there.
Hlučinský Starý Pivovar (2) — Stary means “old” — is a microbrewery located in Hlučín, (HLOO-cheen), a small town situated in the hills and farmland to the immediate west of Ostrava, the steel making and coal mining city located in the northwest of the Czech Republic near the borders with Poland and Slovakia (3).
The area around Ostrava has been the domain of three large breweries in recent times: Opava’s to the west (founded in 1825; maker of Zlatovar), Nošovice’s to the southeast (1970; Radegast), and the one in Ostrava itself (1897), the producer of Ostravar, favorite beer of the city’s working men.
Loyalty to these brands is strong, and perhaps was strengthened during four decades of Communism, when supplies of beer from elsewhere were sporadic. All three breweries are visibly adapting to the changing economic times by modernizing distribution methods, streamlining their appearances (beer labels look very different now as opposed to six years ago) and undertaking the dreaded “m” word: “marketing” (4).
Considering the competitive brewing climate in the Ostrava area, it’s amazing that a microbrewery/brewpub exists in Hlučín. Or maybe not. After all, there is a pedigree. 400 years of brewing at the site of today’s Hlučinský Starý Pivovar concluded in 1904, when Hlučín as yet belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and Emperor Franz Joseph was completing his 56th year on the throne.
After 89 years, two world wars, the dissolution of one empire, then the imposition and death of another, brewing returned in 1993. Bits of Hlučín’s history and the town’s brewing heritage can be glimpsed from the brewery’s beer garden; a 14th-century section of the town’s wall is part of an adjacent building, and tunnels remain in existence.
Brewery owner Leonard Plaček, who is a native of the area, spent two years procuring equipment from Czech and French manufacturers. An electrical engineer by profession, Plaček did much of the wiring and installation work himself.
On the day of my visit, the female brewer (rare in the Czech Republic) was away from work. She brews two 12-degree (roughly 5% abv) lagers: světlé (light/golden) and tmavé (dark). The barley is malted in Slovakia, and hop pellets of unspecified type come from Germany. Plaček identifies his yeast as “Type H.”
The two house brews are lagered for a month and filtered. The světlé is fresh and crisp, hoppier than Zlatovar and Ostravar but not Radegast. The tmavé has the expected chocolate tones and a mellow roastiness, and most importantly, it isn’t as sweet as the style tends to be in the Czech Republic, where anything other than golden pilsner is regarded (by males) as unmanly.
This style-by-gender distinction also serves to illustrate that beer appreciation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia at present bears little resemblance to what we’re creating in the United States.
Most Czech beer drinkers understand the basic ingredients in beer and are justly proud of their famous local hops and the worldwide fame of the more familiar Czech brands. They take their beer seriously, but perhaps owing to the very traditional, localized nature of beer and brewing, there is little knowledge of global styles, particularly when it comes to top-fermented ales.
These are largely unknown except in Prague, where newly-opened Irish pubs sell a pint of Guinness for the same price as four half-liters of local pilsner across the street.
Local discussions about beer tend to be more elemental, folksy and down-to-earth, unlike the technical conversations we’re likely to hear at new-age American brewpubs. Storytelling ability trumps scientific know-how, commonly centering on themes like beers with the most kick, or the ones that won’t cause hangovers. None of this is bad. It’s just different.
In Hlučín, Plaček’s fledgling brewery now produces enough beer to sell at his own restaurant and beer garden, and at 60 other accounts in Ostrava and environs. All of Plaček’s beer is sold unpasteurized in kegs, and because no money is spent on advertising and little for transport, it is inexpensive as well as good. At his pub, a pint goes for 8 Czech crowns – or about 33 cents.
The Moravian pub crawl began at the village pub (hospoda) in Děhylov, which was accessible to George, Frank and myself by foot, perhaps ten minutes up the hill from the home of George’s parents. There a few local luminaries, all known to George, had gathered for an “Ostravar brunch.”
From the hospoda’s terraced entryway, industrial Ostrava’s smokestacks can be seen a few miles away past hay fields and wooded areas. Given that the city has often been compared to 20th century Pittsburgh, Frank’s hometown, he suffered several violent nostalgia attacks – or maybe he had just had too damn many Ostravars.
After a solid food-based brunch prepared by George’s mother, we walked down to the Opava River, a center for kayaking and one of George’s youthful haunts. Appropriately, U Loděnice (5), a rustic drinking site, is maintained for the use of sportsmen and spectators, and fine pints of Radegast are to be had at picnic tables in the shade of big hardwoods.
At this point, it was decided that we would visit George’s uncle in the neighboring village of Dobroslavice, which George guaranteed was only a short distance away by route of a shortcut over the hills. The ensuing death march through the timber along several logging access roads left me soaked with sweat, gasping for breath and in desperate need of a beer … bringing us to the next stop of the tour, the village pub in Dobroslavice, where we met an interesting young high school student who had spent time in Michigan as an exchange student and who had mastered English vernacular. We had a lengthy discussion about Beavis and Butt-Head as I downed my Radegasts.
Finally, George’s cousin drove us back to Děhylov, where we were alarmed to discover that the hospoda had shut down for the evening. There was a final hope, Restaurace U Kurtu, at Děhylov’s spanking new sports and tennis club. It also was preparing to close, but we caught a break, as a man drinking there turned out to be Mirek, who during my 1989 visit guided me on a walk to examine an historic countryside church. He is a guiding force behind the club, and so everyone was persuaded to stay late.
Very much like home.
Recollections of the “Mirror Ball” pub crawl in Prague are considerable hazier, as we were guided into more establishments than any drinker could be expected to remember.
Suffice to say that there is no better way to spend an evening in Prague than to be guided by a native through the city’s warren of watering holes, places where the malodorous Czech beer cheese can, at least in summer, be smelled a block away; small, wood-paneled, smoke-stained places serving beers like Staropramen, Velkopopovický Kozel and Krušovice (little-known and excellent pilsner from the hop-growing area north of Prague) on draft, tucked into the city’s ancient alleyways and archaic streets.
We were ascending the castle hill when we saw a battered poster announcing a forthcoming concert: Neil Young and the members of Pearl Jam at the ice hockey stadium, scheduled for the evening of our departure for the overnight train trip to Košice. A quick glance at the date and time confirmed that Frank and I could pull it off by stowing our packs at the central station, riding the Metro (subway) a few stops to the Holešovice district, then reversing course before midnight.
And so it went. Despite assurances by George and his cousin to the effect that no one would think of attending such an expensive show ($16 per ticket), ticket lines were long and the place was packed. I’ll avoid a detailed review apart from this reference to Neil Young aficionados: “Cortez the Killer,” “Rockin’ in the Free World,” and “Down by the River” – or, the last three songs performed, consuming more than thirty minutes.
Quite a few kids were drinking beer, and Neil made one memorable statement when he drank deeply of a bottle of beer, held it aloft and asked the crowd “Is this a Budweiser? Is this the real Budweiser from Czechoslovakia?” After the roar subsided, he added “it sure tastes good.”
My memories of the Košice tour segment are strangely scant, although economics remained overwhelmingly in our favor; Frank and I ate and drank royally, and met a few of my former students from 1991-92. Taking advantage of Eger, Hungary’s relative proximity by rail (it’s only 113 km, or 70 miles), we spent a night in this regionally renowned wine town. As it turned out, it might have been faster to hitchhike.
According to Steve Fallon in Hungary: A Travel Survival Kit (Lonely Planet Publications; 1994):
Wine has been produced in Hungary for thousands of years, and it remains important economically and socially … but foreigners used to drinking wine are generally disappointed by the Hungarian variety. Under Communism, most of what wasn’t consumed at home went to the Soviet Union where, frankly, they were happy to drink anything. This and state control offered little incentive to upgrade antiquated standards of wine-making … (but) all that is changing, and fast.
As a foreigner unaccustomed to drinking wine regularly, I haven’t shared Fallon’s disappointment, finding Hungarian brands perfectly serviceable. Our day in Eger was one of purely scientific vino sampling, a pleasant change of pace geographically as well as a refreshing departure from the rigors of comprehensive beer tasting.
Eger, a city of 66,000 in north-central Hungary, is two hours east of Budapest by train. One look at Eger from the vantage point of its hilltop castle and one is reminded of Hungary’s agricultural reputation. The city is surrounded by low, rolling hills, some wooded, but most delineated by broad expanses of cultivation.
As a relatively isolated, provincial outpost, Eger is rich in history and boasts the critical attribute of a microclimate suitable for the production of strong, flavorful wine in abundance – more than an adequate reason for existence by any standard. Indeed, Eger is a winemaking center of long standing.
It enjoys an international reputation as the home of Egri Bikaver: “Bull’s Blood,” a rich red wine. The city efficiently caters to tourists seeking an affordable, wine-soaked vacation spot, including foreigners in greater numbers than before, but still mostly Hungarians, who come for wine as well as a convenient base for trips into the woods.
Eger strikes me as an oversized, Magyarized version of Huber’s Winery in Starlight, Indiana, even if no one up in Starlight speaks Hungarian (the English spoken there is another, equally indecipherable matter), and you can’t get to Huber’s by train. However, as Frank and I were to discover, the same is almost true of Eger when traveling from Košice.
It began well. The plan was to cross the Slovak-Hungarian frontier at Hidasnémeti, roll through industrial Miskolc, debark at Füzesabony, and change to another line for the brief concluding stretch to Eger. Other than unpronounceable names, it should have been smooth, but wasn’t. The first problem was money.
The banks in Košice didn’t sell Hungarian forints, and we didn’t want to pay the customarily inflated price for international through tickets, so we elected to pay point-to-point on the train, looking to change cash into Hungarian forints at our first opportunity. Improvisation like this usually works well in east-central Europe, but not always on German or Scandinavian trains, where you’ll likely to be lectured sternly in impeccable English, heavily fined, and/or heaved onto a nowhere village’s sheep-crossing of a rail platform.
They’re usually looser in the east. Accordingly, Slovak crowns covered the short trip to the Hungarian border, then from Hidasnémeti, the fare to Füzesabony was painlessly negotiated with a handful of German Deutschmarks and a U.S. dollar bill. The accommodating conductor quickly calculated exchange rates and recorded the transaction.
We planned on changing money at Füzesabony, both for train tickets and alcoholic sustenance, only to find that in this dusty Hungarian prairie town – it lacked only sagebrush and six-shooters to be in western Kansas – both banks were ignoring their posted business hours.
Without forints we were doomed to a parched two and a half hour wait in a bare bones, almost deserted station bereft of circulating air, keeping company with a few dozen very bored flies and an elderly female toilet attendant who eyed us suspiciously after overhearing me attempt to interest an utterly indifferent station buffet worker in changing money on the sly. Needless to say, no money – no refreshments.
When the train for Eger finally began boarding, our foreign currency reserves were again readied for the inevitable haggling over fares. Bizarrely, the young conductor seemed paralyzed at the sight of dollar bills. Her superior, an older man, studied one of the bills as though it read “Republic of Outer Jupiter,” not U.S.A.; after a consultation, he handed it back and they refused to accept payment for our trip.
In slight English, we were reminded to get Hungarian money at Eger – almost as if they were more concerned that we didn’t understand the need for Hungarian money in Hungary than in collecting what was owed to the state railways.
Nice enough of them, and yet strange given it has been only a few years since every resident behind the Iron Curtain sought hard currency, and knew not only what most foreign money looked like, but memorized serial numbers and signatures of American treasury secretaries. In those days, changing small amounts of money usually could be achieved via human automatic teller machines — often waiters and waitresses (6).
How could it be that unofficial wheeler-dealer capitalism had existed surreptitiously amid communism, but now our cordial, fully capitalistic rail conductors didn’t have the entrepreneurial ability to grease a wheel? Maybe a fare worth only four bucks was too little to care for government employees on a sweltering summer’s day.
Once in Eger it was a few blocks down a broad avenue lined with large houses, vines and trees to the main tourist office. A bearded, laconic employee rang a family-run guest house to arrange a room, and at last we changed money effortlessly, leaving somnolent Füzesabony far behind.
Eger’s old town is compact and largely unmarred by the communist era’s pre-fab concrete pile ‘o’ feces architecture, and renovations have left the city in good condition. Hotels, rooms to let, restaurants, bars and other necessities are abundant. More importantly, there are ample stocks of wine, generally colored red.
White wines are made in Eger, including versions of the famous Tokaj sweet dessert wine, which both Hungarians and Slovaks claim to have originated, but “Bull’s Blood” is most renowned. Predictably, conflicting tales purport to explain the name, most going back to the period roughly 400 years ago when rampaging Turks were a constant threat to east-central Europe.
During one fierce battle for the town of Eger, which ended in victory for the Hungarian defenders, it is said that the attacking Turks became frightened by the red stains on the beards of their enemies, because they believed that the Hungarians were drinking the blood of bulls for strength. Actually, the Hungarian commander had been fortifying his bastions not only with stones and lumber, but with copious amounts of liquid courage: Eger’s blood-red wine.
Modern-day residents of Eger are reminded of their erstwhile Turkish rulers by a lone minaret on the site of a mosque that disappeared long ago. The tower reposes in slender phallic splendor just meters away from Minaret Hotel, whose adjacent restaurant was the venue for our afternoon meal on Saturday, the highlight of which was an oversized bowl of carp soup.
Carp is raised in farm ponds in east/central Europe. The carp in my soup was cut into big, fatty filets that exuded just the right amount of pungent fishiness. I washed it down with mineral water in an effort to preserve my palate for the wine tasting to come.
Following our ample afternoon meal, we embarked on the 25-minute walk to Eger’s major attraction (for us): The Valley of the Beautiful Women, home to numerous privately-owned wine cellars dispensing the magical red liquid of legend. Snippets of conversation in the air as the natives walked past reconfirmed the impenetrability of the Hungarian language. Fortunately in Eger, wine is the answer to any linguistic problem.
There was a pause at a cemetery to survey rows of cases containing cremated remains, stacked high off the ground, the visual effect being similar to the communist-era housing blocks surrounding most Hungarian cities, and then we came to the crest of a hill. Looking into the valley below us, tour buses were marked in rows, and mobs of people milled about.
Set into the hillsides are the entrances to the wine cellars, fashioned from concrete, stone and wood. Many had seating areas outside. The small vineyard owners mature their wines here and dispense them to visitors, often via unpredictable schedules, although someone is always open for commerce. Eger’s wines rarely are varietals. Instead, two or three types of grapes are blended together. According to what we were told, Eger’s grapes demand extremes in temperatures – warm summers and cold winters.
We descended the slope into the valley, the late afternoon heat casting a metallic shimmer on the tour buses. The atmosphere is similar to a county fair, and we were greeted by food and drink stands, music and dancing, and a few carnival rides.
After a circuit of the narrow valley by way of a looping road with a park set in the middle, we entered a cellar and sat at a long table. The natives ignored us completely and carried on drinking their ruby-red concoctions, so we tried again, this time ducking into an adjacent entrance and taking a flight of stairs down into the earth, to be greeted by a wonderful South African proprietor who had learned Hungarian from her husband and moved to Eger to manage the cellar we’d chosen. It was cool and damp, and previous visitors had pressed forint coins into the moldy fungus for good luck.
First we were served a young red wine that had yet to attain fullness or balance. This and subsequent samples were served by our hostess from a wine thief, or a long, bulbous tube into which she drew the wine from the containers by cupping her lips around the tube and inhaling, and then poured it by using her little finger to direct the gravity-fed spray into our glasses.
The second sample was her vineyard’s own version of “Bull’s Blood.” A large, commercial winery makes the Egri Bikaver sold overseas; what we tasted at this and subsequent cellars were local interpretations. Appropriately, the afternoon turned into evening, and as we moved on to other cellars, everything dissolved together.
Eger’s trademark red wine passes the sole test I apply to my infrequent tastings, which is to ask, “Would Ernest Hemingway have liked this?” Hemingway typically did not waste words describing white wines; instead, he wrote about red wines that make the earth move (at least I think it was wine from that scene in For Whom the Bell Tolls.) I don’t know if Hemingway ever visited Eger, but I imagine Bull’s Blood would have garnered his approval.
After several hours of sampling, we made our way back into the center of the city and capped off the evening with more wine and a beer. Next morning our wheeler-dealer host Miklos determined train times and called a cab for us, and we were off to the station for the return trip to Košice.
This time, with ample Hungarian money in hand, the Eger – Füzesabony – Hidesnameti return trip proceeded without a hitch. At Miskolc there was a three-hour wait. I remembered from 1991 that the train station restaurant was good and relatively cheap, and so we killed time over rough and ready goulash soup and a few bottled beers.
(Mainstream Hungarian lagers use adjuncts and tend to be mild and spritzy, with the exception of “Bak” beers, which are loosely based on German bocks and provide a chewier essence than the everyday Hungarian lagers, although the pervasive maltiness makes one yearn for hop balance.)
From Miskolc, it was back north across the border to Košice and our prearranged rendezvous with friend and former English student Joe Ivančo prior to catching our overnight train back to Prague. We chose the open-air courtyard of a briefly fashionable Old Town pub for our final evening in Slovakia, drinking delectable draft Budvar, which might be the world’s most superbly balanced golden lager beer.
Neil Young was right; it sure tastes good.
NOTES
(1) Reintroductions are in order. George was a defector from communist Czechoslovakia who serendipitously ended up in New Albany; we met him here, his aunt and uncle here, and his parents here. Frank was my former university professor in history (more here). I know that Vladimir passed away some years back.
(2) The brewery in Hlučín is still working, 30 years later, albeit altered, having evolved into Avar Brewing. It is my assumption that the owner Plaček has long since retired; he’d be in his eighties now.
(3) During the 1990s, Ostrava’s industries declined, and some disappeared. Environmental remediation ensued, and during the period of the European Union the city has become a tourist and cultural center. I wouldn’t recognize it now.
(4) Ostravar remains in operation. Zlatovar does not, having wound down a decade or more ago, with its historic building repurposed as a shopping center. Apparently a version of Zlatovar is still being brewed by the Nymburk brewery in Bohemia. Radegast, named for a Slavic god, is owned by Asahi Breweries via Pilsner Urquell, who purchased it in 1999.
(5) U Loděnice still exists, vastly augmented.
(6) While ATMs existed at the time, neither of us as yet were equipped to make use of them.
