Browchek. Browchek. Browchek. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. Some of these are like state owned. The can on this is hilarious. Well, that's the Eastern Bloc way. Totally a jab at Budweiser. Only brewed in the Czech Republic. Roger, you actually brought tasting placemats, which is, I mean that's, Roger put some thought into this one. He was time and effort into this. He's going to be offended if we don't love this one. Yeah. Where's my placemat? Roger, how am I going to know what the hell I'm doing? How did you let me be on this episode? Because I'm just going to write. I'm going to ask you to be on your best behavior. Because Jim had to go see the vampires. Yeah, because Jim's seeing the sparkly vampires. The sparkly vampires. It's a long story. Sometimes it's more about our viewing public, listening public than it is about you, Greg. So please be on your best behavior. These are my kind of beers. I love all these beers. Number one, we need a curmudgeon. Number two, the sparkly vampires probably tasted these beers in the 1800s. Yeah, good point. There are so many local breweries, including one that Broph has been expounding on how great they are. And I agree. Art history out in Geneva. Great brewery. They're starting to brew lagers. And whenever I'm going to been given the chance to encourage people to start thinking and drinking lagers, both local and the classic examples, that's something I want to get behind. So I put together this little thing about Czech lager, because I don't think a lot of people really get what Czech lager is. I don't. Is it Pilsner? Is it Pilsner? Is that it? Is that the answer? Yes and no. So that's why we're going to walk through these. And that's why we're going to start with Pilsner Erkel, which in the Czech Republic is the only lager that can be called a Pilsner. What? Isn't that hilarious? It's the only lager that can be called a Pilsner, even though here everything is a Pilsner. Yes. Because of Miller Lite is a fine Pilsner beer. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Hey, you're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg, I get to taste Czech beer today. In the room with me today. Hey, I'm Pat. I love Czech beer. And Chris is on the line. Yes, I'm here, and I also love Czech beer, but I'm not being sarcastic, so. Neither am I. F*** you. One of my all time favorite beers is in this lineup today. Where would your beloved hams be if Czech beer didn't exist? It wouldn't. So, and Roger's leading us through this beloved lineup of Czech beer. Yeah. So, Czech Republic is the leading for, as far as beer trivia fun fact goes, they're the leading consumer per person of beer in the world, and have been for quite some time. So, they know a thing or two about beer, and their beer style, the Pilsner, which originated in the Czech town of Pilsen, has been kind of adopted by the entire world, and kind of stolen by the Germans. I think a lot of people think of Pilsner, they think of Germany, not the Czech Republic. Add it to the list of things that have been stolen by the Germans. The Germans. Well, the broader region of Bohemia included parts of Germany at one time. So, I mean, there's some crossover there. Munich and Pilsen are only, I don't know, few hours away from each other. Yeah, definitely bordering countries, and not that long ago, these countries obviously didn't exist, which is why a lot of these beers are described as Bohemian beers. So the Czech Republic was formerly encompassed both the countries of Bohemia and Moravia. Anyway, if you've heard of Pilsner, the most famous Pilsner in the world, the original one, the brewery that started it all, was Pilsner Erkel, and Erkel means the original. We discussed this a little bit in a past episode, but just to recap real quick, the famous story was that in this town, the burgers were disappointed at how crappy the local beer was, and it came to a tipping point when they literally were dumping barrels of beer in the town square because it was so terrible. So they decided that they had to do something about it. They wanted to build a new brewery and hire a brewmaster to come in and show them how it's done. So maybe the nod for how the Germans stole it was that they did bring in a Bavarian brewmaster, Joseph Grohl, to design their beer. Talk about curmudgeonly. His father apparently once described him as the meanest man in Bavaria. That's pretty freaking mean. Nobody could stand him for more than like three years. I think three years after he creates this revolutionary beer, he was gone from the brewery. But he comes up with this beer that the most unique characteristic of it was the malt that they used. The malt was what we now refer to as Pilsner Pilsen malt. And they were actually using technology that was popularized in England. But when they constructed this brewery, probably the most important component of it was they'd be malting all the barley themselves there, and then they'd be kilning it there. And they would be producing this very light colored malt, which produced a beer that was so much paler than what most of the loggers were at the time. So much so that when this trend finally hit Munich, there was a revolt, and all the old timey brewmasters wanted to boycott Pilsner because they decided that it was a threat to their dunkel, their beloved dunkel, and this wasn't beer. So the whole old men and old guard bitching about what the young people are doing is nothing new. It's been going on forever. Never ends. The other real key component to this was that they use locally grown hops from the Czech town of Zatik or Saz. So there's kind of this confusing thing with when we talk about all these towns and stuff today. Over time, there's German names for things and then the Czech names for things. And that's been a very contentious cultural thing with the Czech people. More about that to go, but let's try this beer, this super famous beer, which we are drinking today in a can. Pilsner and Kell for years was in green glass. So of course was marred by the light struck skunkiness condition. Got a few of those coming up. Curset green glass. And what a handsome can this is. It's a textured can, but then some of the more colorful graphics, like the picture of the mug and the little wax seal, are flat though. They don't have a texture to them. It's just there's a lot of fun little detail all over this can. It's one of the better looking beer cans I think I've ever seen. That's just one of the four. The four in the pack have different designs. Oh, that's cool. It's super cool. The irony here is that we're putting it in cans now to protect it from being light struck, but this is the beer style that ushered in actual glasses so you can gaze upon the beauty of its golden aura. This is one of the earlier beers I ever had, not the first beer I ever had, but I remember very distinctly trying this beer once in high school at a friend's house, who was in his dad's fridge in the garage, and it was sold to me as, this is supposedly the best beer on the entire planet. I remember pulling the foil off the top and tasting it and thinking like, oh, no thanks. Yeah. So bitter. Well, given that 90% of the world's beer production is based on this style, that may not be an exaggeration that it sounds like. It's certainly an icon. The reaches of Pilsner is huge, and the hoppiness of this style has been so dumbed down in some of the expressions in America or the whole world. But when you taste this, you realize what a bracingly hoppy beer Pilsner Kale is. I mean, this has some really big hop bitterness on the finish. And I think that's what the current craft movement in America has started to realize. They're like, oh, we're obsessed with hops. Pilsner, when you make it as it traditionally should be made, is a really hoppy beer. They're starting to play around with that and like dry hop it, increase the hop even more, more aromatic. Yeah, this is a great beer. I mean, it's got that kind of grassy, spicy hop nose, bit of crackery malt, and then it finishes with a bracing bitterness, and it's just clean quenching bitterness. It smells sweet. It smells like a grainy kind of sweetness. And then yeah, it does have much more hop punch than you would expect. Well, this is literally the antithesis of modern brewing. The classic ingredients put on full display for you to love or reject, you know. It's malt and hops to the fore. It's great, and it is definitely the basis that we need to measure these others against, right? Yeah, it seems like it. Yeah. I read when someone was talking about the idea of beer in the Czech Republic, that breweries have to get kind of creative to differentiate themselves from one another because there is so much similarity. So, I think you will notice some subtle differences in these, and one of the things that Pilsner Kall is famous for is that hop cut. So, they really, again, we're talking about Saz hops, and there's three additions, and it's really noticeable in both the aroma, but especially on the finish. The next beer that we're going to drink has quite a history to it. When you look at the can here, I love the new branding for this beer. It's amazing they got it shaped like a middle finger. Only brewed in the Czech Republic and then owned by the Czech Republic. So the beer is called Czechvar, but in every most of the world, it's known as Budvar. This brewery is known as, I'm going to attempt to say this properly, Budějovitsky Budvar, or it's more commonly referred to as Budweiser Budvar Brewery. I guess the guy who was naming the place. Hey, I've toured that brewery, they got the big horses. So if you just heard the word Budweiser and went, what? This has led to an ongoing Budweiser trademark dispute that's literally been going for 100 years and has resulted in over 100 court cases. That's some good old fashioned legal bloat right there. It's a valuable name. Just like Pat tried the Pilsner out of his friend's fridge 30 years ago, you couldn't get Czech VAR here. And I first tried it in Europe and I was seeking it out. I had literally had to look for it so I could try the original European Budweiser. It was exciting. It's way less bitter. It's more grainy and the hops are there, but they're not as grassy. It's got a sweeter nose too, sweeter nose. Yep. Yeah. So yeah, very, very good point. The hops are very often referred to as rounded, so they still use quite a bit of hops in this beer, but it definitely doesn't have the bracing, bitter hop cut like Pilsner Kjell does. Part of that is because of a few things. Czechvar uses whole cone hops and prides themselves on that. They're of all the big guys in the Czech Republic, and they believe the only brewery that still does that. Then the key to this beer is that it is loggered for an really intense amount of time. More than Pilsner Kjell? Yeah. This beer is loggered for three months. Shut the front door. Most breweries have cut this down to between two or four. It's more like four there, but in America, loggering it's not uncommon for 20. Four weeks he means. Two weeks. Two to four weeks. Yeah. So going back to just sort of the dispute about this beer and the craziness. So in most of the world, Budweiser is sold simply as Bud because of this. And then again, this beer is sold as Czechvar instead of Budvar. If you're wondering, so how did all this happen? Much like how Pilsner took its name from the town of Pilsen, this style of beer took its name from the Czech town, which the German name for the Czech town is Budweiser. So if you were to brew a beer in that town, it would be called a Budweiser style beer. That town in Czech, and I think this is part of the reason that Budweiser caught on, is that it's pretty difficult to say. České Budvěřské? Wait, they went from České Budvěřské to Budweiser? Yeah, to Budweiser. But this is definitely a sense of pride there. They're trying to recapture the České identity and not have it be so German dominant. So anyway, this beer, when it was available in the US because of this controversy, had to go by this different name. But in addition to, as far as differences go, it's the whole Cone Hopps. They pride themselves on that. They're really proud of the type of malt that they use. Again, that's only local source malt. And then these breweries are also very adamant that they use their own water source that's untreated. So again, this is like artesian well water. It's from like a thousand feet below the brewery. And they use really soft water, which is a key to the mouthfeel. It's a really soft beer. It's a soft, round, easy drinking beer that doesn't get like flabby though. It still has just enough hop cut in the back. So that's true until you skip to the next beer that we poured. This beer stinks. Literally. Oh my God. Did you leave this bottle outside? I did not. Oh my God. Is it fresh or not? It's fresh. Oh, it's gross. Well, it's not gross, but- It's gunky. Okay. So folks, what Roger did to us is we have two bottles of Chekvar. Well, we have the very handsome can and then this green glass bottle. This amazing can and then a green glass bottle and it stinks. It stinks like that moose head that you found in the back of your pickup. Damn. I'm not even going to pour mine. I pop the lid on it and the skunk jumped out of the bottle so immediately. I don't even need to taste it. It crosses over to the palate too. It's not just a stink on the nose, that skunkiness just all the way through the finish, it trounces the hops. Yeah. I mean, this is such a beautifully delicate beer that having it marred like this, if you try this green bottle, you will think you're drinking not a very good beer, but this beer is impeccably balanced. It's beautifully textured. Everything about it I love. In fact, I have been drinking this like mad since I found it in cans, since we started getting in cans. I would go so far to say that as hams is to Pat, checkvar might be my thing. Nice. Jim, play the checkvar horn. I can attest, he is definitely telling the truth. I still remember when he mentioned to me that he one day said, you know checkvars and cans now? I was like, yeah. He goes, that's pretty awesome. Hey, so has this gotten more popular lately, Roger? Are we selling more checkvars now than we were five years ago or something when I was still working in beer? We are, and I'm proud to say that we don't have the cans in as many stores as the bottles because they're more established, but we sell more of the cans than the bottles. Really? Even though they have a smaller distribution footprint. Yeah. So get those cans in stores beer guys. Yeah. So vote with this. We insist you try this beer because it's an amazing beer. Are we seeing this more out in the marketplace? Have you seen it on tap anywhere? I mentioned in the pre-show fist fight that it was on tap all over Aspen, Colorado when I was recently there. I have not, but I wouldn't be surprised that there's definitely seems to be more of a push to get it into more bars. The interesting thing will be if they start adopting the side pour tap, which a lot of- That check faucet. Yeah. Pills and Raquel was always big on that, but there weren't a lot of takers. But now that there's some local people trying to make this style of beer, and they want to do that slow pour with really dense thick foam. The first time I saw that was at Penrose in Geneva like two years ago, and they ordered this tap from the Czech Republic, and it came with zero English instructions in the box or anything. They managed to- It's a tap, it can't be that complicated, but they managed to figure it out. I really like their Pilsner on the slow pour, but then Art History put one in, and Art History is really, really good. This is not a beer to pour in a pint glass up to the rim with no head. If you don't have a healthy, fluffy white head on your Czech Pilsner or Lager, you're doing it wrong. That's a very good point, Chris. Czech beer is all about the foam, so much so that they pour their beer in three different ways famously, especially Pilsner or Cal. I text you guys all the video while we were sitting here talking about it. They're very adamant that you get a nice thick, creamy head of foam. You do so by letting the beer sit for a little bit, so that's why it's referred to as a slow pour. What you're doing is you're kind of de-gassing the beer a little bit, so you're removing some of that CO2, but then you're also building almost like a meringue-like foam on it. Part of why this is catching on is that everything today is about how photogenic something is, and you can get these pretty cool-looking pores where the foam, it really does look like meringue. It's above the rim of the glass, and it holds its form, great head retention. The important thing too, if you're asking yourself like, all right, so what exactly is the importance of foam besides that it looks nice? It captures all these hop aromatics. So you're really doing yourself a disservice if you're not drinking beer with the proper amount of foam on it, because so much of taste is smell. So you want all that beautiful, noble hop character to be leaping from the glass. So, yeah, just again can't can't recommend enough that people give Checkvar a try. And if enough people start buying it in cans and rejecting these stupid green glass bottles, maybe we can make a difference here. It's all beer IQ. And, you know, we need people to send a message. So, speaking of stupid green glass bottles, our fourth beer of the session here is Praga. Yep. Praga Pills, they say Czech Pills, they make a Pills in a Dark, and the Dark is in Amberglass, I think, right? No, it's in Greenglass, too. Oh, he has it. Nice. Yeah, it's green. It's green. So, it's green. It's green glass, yeah. Look up by the cap. Well, either way, starting with the Praga Pills, this doesn't smell as skunky. Yeah, that's true. But it definitely smells like it's a bit long in the tooth. Again, I believe this is one other last thing about Chekvar that's great. On those cans, they have a double date, which is the best system of code dating. So, it has when it was made and when they say it expires, you know, best buy, and they give it a year like a lot of international loggers. But it's probably pasteurized. Yeah, with the Praga, we have no idea. It's some lengthy code date, and I don't know how to read it. So, it's a question mark, but it's really important to remember that that light-struck photo chemical reaction can take place literally in a matter of minutes. I've had it happen to really hoppy beers when I'm drinking outside on a beer patio, when I'm sitting in direct sunlight. Like, that's how quick it happens. Yeah, literally in the course of drinking a beer. That's why I never leave the house. That's why it makes it super fast. Yeah. So, that's why, really, green glass has got to go. But so, Praga Pills was one of the outliers for a while, and it caught on a little bit. I wanted to include it here because, ironically, Brewery Sampson just arrived in the US. And I think what a lot of people don't realize is that they are the brewery that was always making Praga. Really? So while Sampson, which has a storied past, wasn't available for quite some time here, Praga was like a brand that was created in 2004, looking to bring a high quality product to market, but they were contract brewing it at this brewery, which subsequently became purchased by AB in 2014. But we'll get more to that when we drink some of the Sampson. But as far as what's the deal with Praga, open vat fermenters, lager for 50 to 60 days, again, soft artesian well water, locally grown barley, local saws and hops. So again, following the playbook, but from your tasting, what do you guys think? Again, I think it- So Pat says it smells old. I get esters, I get bananas and cloves, and a little bit of spice. Is that because it's old or is that because of the malt and yeast? I think it's the yeast and the malt. And one thing I wanted to point out is that lots of the yeast there can actually produce quite a bit of diacetyl. So it's not even really off character to pick up on that. Like a little bit is acceptable. And I get some on this. I think the hops in fresh Pilsner or Kale kind of cover it up a little bit. But I definitely taste a little bit of that here. Not in an unpleasant way, but I'm hypersensitive to it. So I get a little bit of it. Yeah, I don't think my example shows as old. And I'm perhaps not getting as many esters as you are, Greg. But what I do get is soft, biscuity malt with a little bit of a buttery note for sure. And then the hops, especially compared to Pilsner, are less herbal and aggressive and earthy and more floral and subtle. Right, right. It kind of falls in between the Czechvar and the Pilsner and Hop character. Yeah, I'd agree with that. So the next beer that we're going to open here to drink alongside this one is Sampson, which is just arrived. We just started selling it in stores this past month. So this beer, again, like Czechvar is produced in the town of České Budějovice. Bless you. So technically a Budweiser. Right. Beer from this brewery was available for a short time. See if you, Brof and Chris can remember this at all. Do you remember BB Burger Brau? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. BB Burger Brau was again, it had to have those abbreviations because the B and the B or Budweiser Beer Burger Brau. Interesting. The reason, AB bought this brewery in 2014, basically out of spite because of their constant fight with Checkvar to nab this and establish some- They have literally their own Budweiser. Yeah, exactly. But to Checkvar's credit, this happened once Anheuser-Busch had already been bought by InBev. So arguably Checkvar kind of won being independent longer than Budweiser did. Anyway, that's just kind of a sidebar. The funnier thing is, all right, so why is this called Samson? That's kind of bizarre, right? A lot of these have these very ethnic, you know, to the area names. Well, when the Czech Republic was Czechoslovakia under communist rule, the brewery was renamed Samson as a way to deflect from the German-sounding name of Burger Brau. So then when AB InBev buys it, they rename it back to the communist name of Samson. Wait a minute, so they bought a Budweiser and then changed the name away from Budweiser? Yes. To Samson. To Samson. Which is such a weird, I don't know. So anyway. Well, it stinks too. It again is in green. I like this one. It's again in green glass. I don't think it's as skunked as like the Czechvar one. I agree with that. The Czechvar one is as skunked as it gets. No. This one is, really? I think I've had skunkier beer than that. Aka the Moosehead. Then the Czechvar. My Czechvar is so bad. It's ridiculous. Every time I taste another one of these beers, the flavor of the skunked Czechvar keeps coming back up. Again, another classic example of when in doubt, always reach for the can or brown glass, not green glass. Maybe Samson will get with the program. They probably won't until Czechvar changes out of green glass. But maybe they'll start making cans because as we said, there are Czechvar cans. Our last light Czech lager, before we move on to the Czech dark beers. So, this one is an interesting beer. This can design looks like it would, you know, what you'd see on a table in a Marmaduke comic or something. Yeah, right, it's like a can of beer in The Simpsons. Yeah. I don't know, it kind of reminds me of like mid 20th century industrial breweries, like Iron City or something out of Pittsburgh. Yeah, I could see that too. It looks very industrial. Yeah, but somebody did this in Photoshop like 10 years ago. Which is funny because that brewery, even though it kind of looks that way from the black and white photo, it's from 1872 and this brewery has remained unchanged. So they still have kids in there making the beer? So much like how Czechvar, I don't know if I alluded to this, but didn't really emphasize it. Czechvar is owned by the Czech Republic now. I believe Bráček is as well. And part of the idea behind that was that this brewery has, it's called the Nova Paca Brewery. It's closed periodically for stints, but in the 2000s, it kind of had some capital reinvested in it. I think it's kind of treated as like an operating museum type thing. They still do, I thought you would think this is cool, Pat. They still do all their own maltings, all floor malting. That's awesome. They're really old school. The Dark is their old label, which kind of has more of a kind of vintage look. It looks like Young's Chocolate Stout. Yeah, kind of. Yeah, Browchecks just started putting their stuff in these four pack cans. They were always in brown glass though, which is nice. This is in a can again, and we're back to sweet, biscuity, malt. It's very sweet compared to the others. But it's wonderful. It's soft and it's fresh. I'm starting to think that the reason that I don't like lager is literally just green glass. I've had so many bad examples, and the handful of counter examples just don't cancel that out. There's no doubt. I mean, you're not alone. Half of the beer-drinking world thinks that's part of the flavor profile of Heineken or Moosehead or something. That and also the hops are a little bit much on Pilsner Urkel. This is coming from a hop head, but it's just not balanced. It's just grassy, bitter. Yeah, sharpness at the end of it. But this one here, I mean, it's super sweet, but it's just nice and plush. It's a nice plush little. It is a plush little. Easy drink it back. Fat little beer. Fat little boy. Yeah. It is by far the softest beer here, even more so than the Czechvar. It just glides down your throat like velvet. This one is really got that honeyed malt character. I think this goes really well with food. This is a nice one to have with dinner. The other thing that's nice about this, like Czechvar, you can pick up a four pack of this for $4.99. Holy cow. Awesome. This is very honeyed and it's just pleasant. It is. Pair this with a grilled sweet corn. Yeah, I like that. Okay. Or some corn pudding. All right. So before we move on to the darker ones, can we just talk about this once and for all? This green glass is bull. Why are they still doing this? You can't tell me that if they all just went brown or went to cans, that their sales wouldn't have talked that much. Maybe there has to be a massive savings in production of it or something. It has to be so much cheaper to manufacture and purchase. Otherwise, some accountant would have told them to change it by now. Why? Why? I still blame. Just the shipping costs between aluminum and glass has got to make a difference. Honestly. Yeah. I mean, aluminum is way cheaper. Way cheaper, way lighter. That's the point. Heineken is to blame. Heineken became such a fad and blew up on the US market. We're to blame and Heineken is to blame. American macro beer had become so- How dare you blame me? Had become so sh**ty and so washed out with cereal grains, that then when they were getting an all malt product from Europe, everyone started to associate European beer with better beer. Then the green glass was like the easiest way for people to just go, oh, that's a European beer, so that's a better beer. I totally see where you're coming from in the year 2000. A couple of decades have gone by since then. Year 2000. I totally agree, and that's why I'm saying the companies that be think you, the consumer, is too stupid to realize this. So that's why we're trying to get the word out there and say, know this, tell your friends, explain it to people. Get your pitchforks, we're going to march on the gates of the Czechvar brewery. Yes. I mean, it really is a head-scratcher, like a great Pilsner that we were just talking about recently. It kills me that it's in green glass. But they did finally start canning. Trumor is a great Pilsner, but again, it's in green glass. And even when it's in a 12-pack that's closed, again, that's how important this light, like putting it in your fridge to get it cold, it's going to get exposed to light, it can skunk. It'll get skunkier. There is no good argument for this. Nobody can say that this makes any sense. And all of these people who are spending all this time crafting these beautiful, delicate beers just to put them in green glass, I can't even understand that mindset. It's insane. It's like washing your car to leave it outside. Here's another counter argument. Who wouldn't take all reasonable steps to protect the integrity of their product, especially when it's historically significant and beautifully made with the greatest ingredients. It just doesn't make any sense. Roger, here's the other reason why I don't believe it's just because they think that we're stupid. Pat, in your cellar, of all the fancy ass Belgian beers that you have in your cellar, how many of them are in green glass? All of them. They don't think that you're stupid. They're making incredible beer. Why do they put it in green glass? Well, okay. Part of the thing with lambic though is lambic is made with aged hops, and so skunking is a chemical reaction of alpha acids in hops and ultraviolet light. As a hop gets aged for a year or more before it gets used in a lambic, it maintains some of its bittering quality, but really it's there for its preservative nature and not so much that acid nature, the alpha and beta acids in it. It's giving the Belgians a pass. I am giving the Belgians a pass. Those dissipate and then it doesn't get that skunk character. All right. They're also using way less hops than a Pilsner. Triple carms guilty though. Triple carmolite, it's true. I mean, that beer is in green glass and that beer gets skunked. Yeah. That is for sure and Cezanne DuPont, if we're talking about Cezanne DuPont as well. DuPont has now switched to brown glass, I thought. Are the 750s still green? Lord knows we've covered Cezanne DuPont at length on this podcast. Yeah. I think for a long time the 750s were a mix, which is ridiculous. That is ridiculous. I mean, literally, that's the heritage of Lambic Breweries was like stealing champagne bottles from bars. I think they just thought it was acceptable 100 years later to just still follow them. I don't know, some of them are brown, some are green. Oh, wow. Did all of these guys buy a lifetime contract of green glass? They're like, well, of course, we're eating at Arby's. Well, I mean, a big thing on continental Europe is refillable glass though. Yeah. Why get rid of it if it's not broken? Because it makes your beer taste like ****. It does. To put a pin in this, Greg, I will say that I've always looked at especially some of the oddball expressions from breweries that we don't get. So like Spaten is an example. Yeah. They'll make some other versions of beers, and I'll just look at them on the internet to see your other German breweries as well. All that stuff is in brown glass in Germany. Right. So like it totally is tied to export market. It's like, oh, the rest of the world thinks that good beer is in green glass, so put it in green glass. And it's like, well, you want it in green glass here? No. It's almost like they don't like us. Right? There are only recourses to vote with our dollars. Buy the cans. If it comes in a can, buy a can. Yep. That's it. Cool. All right, so let's move on to the Dark Czech beers. This is another style that some of the microbreweries are starting to get interested in. Art History is doing one. A couple other people are getting into this game as well. These are some fun beers. I think this is kind of the breath of fresh air that fans of stouts and porters need to embrace, because it has some of the richness that people enjoy in those styles, but with the levity of a lager. You can enjoy something that has cocoa, caramel, coffee notes, but ultimately these are like 4 or 5 percent alcohol, and they're pretty light in body. I fell in love with this style of beer when Praga first got introduced to our market. This would have been probably 2010 or something or 2009, and I absolutely adored the Praga Dark. I drank a ton of that stuff. This is something I just do not associate with Czech beer, which is dark beer, and it's light dark beer. But for your American craft drinker, this is for fans of what? I don't know, Shiner Bock? Your typical Bock drinker? Yeah, but I would go so far as to say that people who like some stout... Dunkle, Munich Dunkle. Yeah, well, Dunkle for sure, but... Nut Brown, you know. I think, again, all those are things that a lot of craft people just don't even really know or touch. So if you like designer stout, but you still want to be able to do a sit-up. Yeah. I mean, try these. There's chocolate here, there's caramel here. I mean, there's that in such a pronounced manner that I've had some adjuncted beers that will put vanilla and chocolate in the beer, and they end up tasting like this, but with kind of a fake aftertaste. I know exactly what you're talking about. Or they're 12 percent and they're super duper heavy, and you feel super gross. Yes. This is under 5 percent alcohol, right? It's soft, it's sweet, it's caramely, chocolaty. What's not to like about it? Yeah. It's a nourishing brew. It's good for you. No, I seriously think, and again, these are super food-friendly. These are awesome with barbecue, grilled meats, grilled veggies, anything in the backyard grill. This is a great Swiss Army knife food pairing. If you feel anxious about, I don't know what people would like. And this can also be a great thing for just demystifying dark beer for people. Like some people just see dark beer and think it's heavy. And this is another beer that proves that not all dark beer is heavy. It can just be rich and have some really bolder flavors. But this is by no means, it's just like the lighter ones, pillowy soft, really rounded mouthfeel. This Sampson Dark is awesome. So we have the Praga Dark and the Sampson Dark open right now. Yes. Sampson Dark is slightly darker in color than the Praga. I would say the Praga has a bit more of a hot bite to it. And Sampson is a bit more chocolatey. Yeah, the Sampson I think is almost like tiramisu. Like it has like a coffee chocolate thing going on. But again, just not heavy at all. Do the kids still eat Malto meal? Does that date me? I don't know, but I like where you're going. Roger grew up on Gruul or something. No, I'm going to make an Oval Teen reference. Yeah, right in the same ballpark. Yep. If you like chocolate malted milk or chocolate malted milkshakes, these beers are for you, which also makes them a great candidate for a beer float. So sometimes people always think of beer floats with like really rich stouts that are already like so indulgent. You put a scoop ice cream in this, it's going to be the same viscosity as like a root beer float, not like a barrel-aged beer float. And slightly less sweet. Right. Yeah, you know, I would say that that maltiness is really pronounced in the Praga. I mean, to me, it just leaps out. It almost smells like a brew house during mashing. It's very malty, slightly worring. Yeah, caramelized malt. And that, too, again, is a very proud Czech tradition, especially like Czechvar. Most of them, though, still do decoction mashing, which is a very geeky beer nerd thing we won't get into. Greg will kill me. But you can look it up. But again, it's very labor intensive to the point where the Germans famously have proven through their science that it's a waste of time. But the Czechs kind of cite their own science and say, we really believe in this. We think it's worth it. And usually when I hear fans of it expound on why they bother, it's that caramelization character that you just think you aren't going to get if you don't do it. Now we're gonna try the Brow Check Dark, which isn't available in cans, but it's in brown glass, plus it's dark enough to filter out light anyway. This guy is, I think, pretty awesome. Again, like the other beers made there, floor-malted, in-house malts. They recommend serving this at 56 to 58 degrees, which I think we're probably at around here. So that's worth noting. You don't need to drink these ice cold. They're going to open up and give you more. 54 degrees, way too cold. 59 degrees, obviously, ridiculous. Right. They also, I thought you could get a kick out of this, recommend you serve this with a hefty, medium-rare steak. What? Thick-cut ribeye. Sorry, Greg, you're never going to fully enjoy this beer. None of this makes any sense. So along with the German chocolate cake, not from Germany, there's also like a cherry note here, like a fruit quality. I agree. Yeah. Good call. Wow. Yeah, and the coconut part of a German chocolate cake too, the whole thing. This is a really awesome beer. It's a tad too sweet for me, I think. It's clearly their house style, muslin towards the sweeter. A little sweetness, yeah. But I think again, maybe you wouldn't want more than one of these, whereas some of the other dark ones you could reach for another one, but it's pretty nice. I think I like, to Greg's point, I think it probably has the most complexity, but yeah, it definitely is the sweetest of the three. Yeah, it's quite sweet and soft and super easy drinking again. I mean, the head is a beautiful, well-retained tan. Yeah, very nice head on it. Carbonation in the body is so soft and subtle. It's just really a nice mouthful. It really is. Their website is pretty old school. Let's just say it that way. It's a little dated and there's some broken English on it. But I think what they're saying is that all their carb is natural, and it's not force-carbed. Yeah. I was thinking about the way the mouth feel on these has been pretty great. You look at the bubbles, they're pretty tiny. Clearly, they're doing things well at this brewery again. For fans of a little bit of sweeter tooth, I want something that has some dessert quality to it. When you say sweet, it's within a really biscuity spectrum. It's not sweet like a American Kraft Stout. It's sweet like biscuits and a little bit, yeah. If you like dark German beers, this is no sweeter than a Munich Dunkle or a Doppelbach. Yeah, exactly. They have pictures of their conference room on their website for this brewery. That's our line up, gentlemen. Something's wrong with me. I am starting to actually like these kinds of beers. Hey, you know what I had recently that was good? The Logger Town from Half Hager. Like, it was perfect for that afternoon where on a Sunday afternoon, I got to watch the Bears lose. Oh, God. Well, you got a, at Wednesday's air, 12 more weeks of that or something? Yeah, something like that. Anyway, and now I'm starting to like these beers that don't put me to sleep and don't make me feel super bloated. Even the Pilsner or Kelv with a little bit too much cut, in my opinion, is still like five bucks for a four-pack. It's refreshing. It's snappy. I'm going to get some of this. I can't believe you can get Brow Check in a four-pack can. It's right in the roll, right? And you said it was $4.99, Roger? Yeah. A floor, a house made floor malted, open fermented, naturally carved European Lager in a can for $4.99. They brew it there. They put it in cans. They put it on a pallet in a box. They put it on a boat. They bring it over here. They put it on a couple trucks, get it to our stores, and it's $4.99. And they malt the barley themselves. Yep. Absolutely ridiculous. This is why I've been preaching the gospel of Czechvar in cans for well over a year now. I mean, this beer is maybe the greatest value on the shelf. It's tantamount to perfection as far as lager goes. Czechvar is $4.99 too. Yeah. And Browchek is $4.99. Yep. But Browchek is malting their own barley. But it's a little softer and sweeter. Czechvar is really good. Czechvar might too. Really? I think they do. There's a lot of floor malting still going on there. These beers are made with the exact same ingredients essentially. They get the raw material, and then they turn it into these different beers. We got Moravian barley that is then malted, and Saz hops, and that's what you're working with. In fact, to geek out a little bit, you might appreciate this. The gravities on Pilsner-Kell, I read this in a book the other night. The gravity on Pilsner-Kell and Czechvar is the same. It's just that Czechvar takes it further. Really? So, then you end up like Pilsner-Kell is 4.4. 4.4, whereas Czechvar is 5%. Oh, so one ends up a little higher alcohol, and one ends up a little sweeter. Well, they need a little bit more of that malt to balance the hops. The hops are much more aggressive. Yeah, it would be way too hoppy if they didn't leave some of that. I agree. If they had attenuated it like the Czechvar, it would be even more bracingly bitter. Yeah. Whereas, Czechvar is just soft and perfectly balanced. I think part of the thing here is that we're all very impressed with these beers and the price point is so cheap, you have to try these beers. How can you afford not to drink them? Don't buy them in green glass. Yeah. Do not. Yeah. So Pilsner or Cali, you're walking home with a four pack for $5.99. It's four different cute cans. Brew Jack, $4.99. I mean, it's just bonkers. Do you think that they're a victim of their own success, especially Pilsner or Cali, that people see it as cheap and they assume that it's not very good? I think Pilsner or Cali's biggest problem was that they were in green glass and they finally got rid of it. They're in brown glass or cans now. It's also flirting with being suspiciously cheap. Suspiciously cheap. Exactly. Yeah. But I mean, you can't besmirch the quality. I think Pilsner for a while, ironically, I could be mistaken, was brewed in other places besides Pilsen for a while, and they weren't using their old traditional wooden- Yeah, they have wooden loggering tanks and wooden fermenters underground below the brewery. You can still very rarely, like once or maybe sometimes twice a year, wooden kegs of Pilsner or Kelle will come to the country, gravity flow kegs, like bar top. Unfiltered too, right? Unfiltered and straight out of the cellar. Delilah's in Chicago gets usually one a year. That is cool. It's like the one time a year, I 100% for sure go to Delilah's. It's awesome. Miller's real drunk slamming big mugs of Pilsner or Kelle all over the place. Kaiser Tiger did that once. I killed the keg of unfiltered. I got the last four. It's so good. Well, Roger, these were awesome. I'm going to go finish them all. Thank you, dude. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for letting me be in it. I didn't just... See how I was on my best behavior? You behaved yourself. I think hopefully it opened your eyes a little. Again, you're a hop head and I think you learned that Pilsner or Kelle is a pretty damn hobby. Just drink five of these and it will be just as good as your 15% Lithuanian beer. Yeah, right. These can be nice inner mezzos too. You know, a little power refresh, grab yourself a nice lager. This and the hummus plate. Cool. All right. Well, hey, thanks for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Next week, we got something even better, so check it out. And until then, I'm Greg. I'm Pat. I'm Roger. And I'm Chris. Keep drinking Czech beer in cans. For God's sake. Keep tasting.