Prague Local Custom Tips by OlafS

The Czechs are a people of beerdrinkers. Needless to say that they are also a nation of brewers. There are two major types of beer, light and dark. Light is pilsner, the type of lager invented in the town of Pilsen (now Plzen) in the 19th century. These are bitter thanks to a gratuitious amount of hop, which is grown also in the country. Try a few different brands and taste for yourself what inferior imitations like Bud and Heineken are doing wrong. Some examples are Urquell and Budweiser/Budvar (which has nothing to do with the American stuff, the Czech one actually IS drinkable). Novometski Pivovar is a brewpub that makes its own. See my restaurant tips for more.
More interesting to me are the dark beers. These are less hoppy than the light beers but are often more complex in taste. Hints of chocolate or coffee (not that there's any of these in the beer!) can be tasted. Some are similar to stout (like Guinness for example). One of my favourites is Krusovice, which can compete with Guinness any time, another good one I tasted is Kelt. U Fleku, the oldest brewpub in Prague, makes an excellent one too, but you will have to visit the place to taste it, which requires a little advance warning (see my restaurant tips).

The local brand of beer of Prague is Staropramen, which unfortunately is owned by the Belgian company Inbev (formerly known as Interbrew) which uses the brewery as a bridgehead to push their own stuff on the people in Prague and eventually get other breweries out of business. Normally I prefer not to to drink any /InterbrewInbev beer, now that I still have the choice, but I would have made an exception for Staropramen if it wasn't so easy to get at home. It is after all good beer. I only hope that the brewery will be in business for a long time to come, and that its beers will remain as goods as they are. Somehow I'm afraid that that is not going to happen. Where InBev rears its ugly head quality is bound to lose.

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