Czech beer $1.25 for 500ml.

[svyturys]

Just got back from 6 weeks in the Baltic countries. No bull about the price of beer here. They were selling Budweisser Bulovar for AU$1.25 per half litre stubby...and guess what....I didn't buy any. There were so many different styles and beers to try that I never got around to it. Porter is pretty big there. (Lithuania). The local milk bar at one place I stayed had 3 varieties.
I started of by trying the "Svyturys Porteris". It was sublime. A rich and gentle cascade of flavours across the palate ending in a "brandy" warmth. Since I had over 200 beers to plough through I did most only once...(did repeat the porter experience,though).
A big variety of lager styles, some English bitter styles and, at festivals, a hot favourite was "country/homestead" beer.
This was interesting. Invariably darker in style and uncarbonated. Good head and poured from barrels. I wish that I had have inquired more about it but from what I gathered it was 19th century and older style brewing. Definitely ale like in character, rich and flavoursome....served warmish/slightly chilled like English beers. They would fill bottles for you if you wanted takeaway.
Talking of festivals, the longest you had to walk from one seller to another was 5 metres. People with beer in hand walking, laughing, no aggressive feeling at all. (Beer is sold in the soft drink department of supermarkets here.)
Latvia and Estonia did not have the variety and flavour. Beer got more bland as we travelled north. (One explanation for this was that there was a significant Russian population in these countries and that they preferred Vodka to beer. This was borne out when we stayed with Russians at a guest house at a remote village by the side of Lake "Peipsi". No beer on their table but was the vodka smooth!
I'm coming to the conclusion that there is a "beer belt", defined by climate and culture where the world's best beers originate from. On the European map it includes England, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania. The belt wobbles to include areas such as the north part of Italy and a bit of France. Areas to the south of this do really good wine and areas to the north...such as Scotland...tend toward spirits.
Anyway, enough of my rant...I'm back in OZ and very glad that I had some homebrew to come back to.

BTW...Qantas has lifted its game somewhat...James Squire Amber available to the plebs as well as the usual VB and Heinekin.

[chadjaja]

Good to have you back Al, its ironic, dark ages brewing techniques and styles and then back to the beer dark ages here variety and availability wise in comparison LOL

Still have choc porter here on tap so thats some sort of consolation, its free so that trumps the $1.25L

Not to mention you can go all grain here soon and take wort home. Soon we will be bugging the Dr, Trough and Warra all about efficiency, sparges and the like LOL

Beer at the milk bar Porter to boot!