A cautionary tale

The news is old, but still worth talking about it.

One winter afternoon, as I was on my way to a meeting with a few pints of Kout at U Slovanské Lípy, as I was walking across Havlíčkovo Nám. I noticed that Svět Piva, formerly known as U Radnice, had closed.

I wasn't surprised or sad. It was to be expected and it was deserved. Total lack of respect for beer, useless staff and an owner that, well, let's say he isn't the most sensible person around were the cause. After the local beer enthusiasts had enough of his attitude and his pub, this man tried to save the shop through the now famous (or infamous) discount sites. It turned out to be an even bigger disaster, one that caught the attention of the media and because a cautionary tale for the operators of these webpages, and probably accelerated the inevitable demise of the pub.

Fortunately, it didn't manage to stain the reputation of the čtvrtá pípa and multi tap pub phenomenon, but it should be a case study for all those that had decided to take this path. It's not about how many taps you have, but the condition of the beers that come out of them and the way they are stored and served as well as staff that at least pretends to give a semblance of a fuck about those beers and the blame won't be the critics' or the brewers'.

This comes because the other day the owner of Kaaba told me about a new place with six taps and a quite a few bottled beers. I passed by and I got the impression that it was very small, there aren't event ables! I still haven't visited it and I might end up surprised, but in a way it reminded me of what happened when Svět Piva added so many taps in a place that was smaller than Zlý Časy.

Na Zdraví!

PS: Last year, Svět Piva's owner set up a microbrewery in Buštěhrad a town near Prague. I had one of their beers last November, not bad, but nothing that will make me jump on a bus. Either way, let's hope this good man has learnt from his experience.