Pivní Filosof - Beer Philosopher

I felt I'd been drinking a bit too much in the previous weeks—more than what I usually drink, which might be already too much. I was thinking of taking a few days, perhaps a week, off the booze after Vysmolení (where, by the way, I had great time! Thanks everyone at Černoskotelecký Pivovár for letting me crash at the brewery, like every year—and this one in particular, for carrying me to bed). The Jurassic hangover I woke up with the next day made the decision very easy. To be honest, I don't know what I was expecting of this attempt, but it wasn't hard; at all. Yes, there were times when I fancied a beer, especially while preparing dinner, but they were fleeting moments; as if I suddenly realised that something was missing from the alchemical ritual of transmuting produce and other ingredients into something greater than the sum of their parts, only to see that it's not that important; its absence wouldn't affect the outcome. By the third day, I think, what I...

This Staruday, 21/5, Černokostelecký Pivovár is hosting the 5th edition of Vysmolení , one of the two local beer festivals I can be bothered with going (the other being its sibling event, Vykulení , in Septermber). It just has pretty much everything I believe a good beer festival should: Free entry—paying an admission fee to buy beer? Fuck that! A fairly limited but well chosen range of beers, several drawn from wooden barrels. All the beers are available in proper, half litre portions—to drink in earnest. Plastic cups for those who can't be arsed with the inconvenience of a glass, while those who don't mind it, can either buy a glass on site or bring their own (provided is marked). It's not too crowded and the venue is great, and outdoors. The music doesn't start until later in the afternoon, by which time you are probably quite pissed and don't mind it. In addition, you get to see master coopers practising their craft and visit the brewery proper, ...

I can't have been the only one who last year exclaimed “Well, fuck!” upon learning that the same people who fucked Staropramen—and other brands in several countries—were going to own Czech Republic's flagship beer. Fear no more! As, I reckon, most of you must are already aware, in order to placate those pesky EU anti-trust regulators, ABIB has undertaken to divest a bunch assets in Eastern Europe , among which is Plzeňský Prazdroj—apparently, getting rid of Grolsch, Peroni and Meantime was not enough. What I find most interesting is that this is basically the same thing ABIB did back in late 2009 , when they sold to an investment fund a bunch of breweries in Eastern Europe that included Staropramen—which happened about a year after the merger with AB and, if I recall correctly, at about the same time that rumours about their interest in SAB-Miller were beginning to go around. That can't be a coincidence. This shouldn't surprise to anyone, really. The ageing Cen...