Pivní Filosof - Beer Philosopher

A couple of months ago, some of the beer personalities I follow on Facebook shared and urged to sign this petition against Patents on Beer and Barley . The text raised a couple red flags that made me doubt the claims of the initiators the petition and prompted me to look further. The first that thing bothered me was the use of “greedy corporations” to describe Heineken and Carlsberg (H&C), the owners of the patents. Regardless of what you or I may think about these companies and other large corporations, I’ve come to associate this language with people who will not appeal to rational and fact-based arguments to get the public on their side, but to our emotions and natural confirmation bias. That wouldn’t have been such a problem, if the whole text of the petition wasn’t so disingenuous. They say: Barley, brewing and beer are all old and well known traditions, which anybody can use. Nevertheless the European Patent Office (EPO) has granted patents to Heineken and Carlsberg for r...

We drove straight to Český Krumlov after the missus, happy with the way her meeting had turned out, picked us up in Prachatice and we arrived at the hotel shortly before five. After checking-in and checking our e-mails, we headed to the centre walking up the lane that went past the hotel. It led us to one of the back entrances of the palace gardens, which was very convenient since the way would go all downhill from there (in the most literal sense). The gardens are gorgeous, and were quite empty. It wouldn’t be until we were getting to the buildings of the palace proper that we started seeing more tourists. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared, fortunately. Perhaps the day-tripping herds were already back on their buses. It was in the palace complex where the first beer in Krumlov was had, more specifically, at Občerstvení na Vyhlídce , a kiosk on one of the lookouts to the city. It was Eggenberg 10° . Very good, it wasn’t, but it did the job. What I would like to know for sure is i...

I care about IPA Day as much as I care about any other Marketing Driven Day or Month, which is even less than I care about the results of the Costa Rican Basketball League, but since we're on the topic, there's something I want to tell Czech micro (and not so micro) brewers (which I'm sure applies in other countries, too): If for whatever reason you aren't able to procure good-quality, fresh enough hops, don't fucking bother to brew a beer that is supposed to be hop-forward. Sod the fashion and have a go at the dozens of other styles that aren't hop-forward. Everyone without a Pokemon mentality who enjoys drinking  good beer instead of going after the latest novelty so they can get another badge in Untappd will be grateful. That's it. Na Zdraví!