Pivní Filosof - Beer Philosopher

I swear to you, I've looked everywhere, I've even asked my neighbours! But I couldn't find a single fuck to give about the latest sexism in beer brouhaha that had some people almost frothing at their virtual mouths a few days ago. Is not that I don't believe there is sexism in the brewing industry. There is, and there is racism, xenophobia and homophobia, and abuse of power, and greed, and hypocrisy, and cuntness. Just like there is everywhere in our societies, unfortunately. The thing is that I can't be arsed with this culture of outrage. The way I see it, many, if not most, controversies these days are hashtag driven, blown out of proportion—if not fabricated—by political correctness (that enemy of free speech), the 24-hour news cycle, the internet, and by people who, I suspect, get a kick about being offended. Or not, I don't care. I've got other more important and urgent things to gripe about than the imagery breweries use for their marketing, or wh...

Gimmicks. They are a staple of (not only) the brewing industry, at all levels. Macro brewers have their special edition labels/cans, usually in sets, celebrating an event or tied to something they happen to be sponsoring. But it's the smaller breweries who have elevated the gimmick to almost an art form. They come in all shapes and sizes: there was this beer that tried to profit from an event the brewers opposed; beers that claim to be brewed according to some ancient recipe, even if said recipe isn't much more than a list of ingredients that were probably used to make beer and lot conjecture; beers made with animal parts or with a product that's passed through the digestive tract of an animal—excrement, by another name—and a bunch of other weird ingredients. There are also the collaborations, the manufactured scarcity, the brown paper bag events and anything that claims to be the -est, among others, too numerous to list. We have also beers that are gimmicks to cosmic ...

There was a time, a few years years ago, when it seemed that Statorpramen was improving. It was back when the brand from Smíchov had been made the flaghsip of a bunch of Eastern European breweries a Belgian investment fund had bought from ABIB, and named Starbev. It didn't last too long. In 2012, Starbev was sold to Molson-Coors and those days are now gone. If they existed at all. My impression might have been a product of wishful thinking, or of drinking the beer in one of those where-and-whens that make everything taste good. Whatever. The thing is that today I find myself in agreement with Pivní Recenze's review of Staropramen Světlý . The closing comment on the other hand. Well... According to Moro, the author Staropramen je českou dvojkou na trhu – toto dosti vypovídá o pivní kultuře v našem státě. (Staropramen is second on the Czech market – this says enough about the beer culture in our country). Really? If Staropramen says that much about Czech beer culture,...