bauhauswerk

Dear Coilers, we are back to the Czech Republic, an amazing country with rich brewing history. Today I’ll present you one of its breweries and taste one of its expressions in Coil’s taproom.

BERNARD FAMILY BREWERY

On 26 October 1991, Stanislav Bernard, Josef Vávra and Rudolf Šmejkal bought the bankrupt Humpolec brewery at an auction under the “small privatisation” scheme.

The dream of building a brewery that would not only brew honest Czech beer, but also have its own opinion began to come true. During the first ten years that followed the privatisation (the brewery was sold at five times its book value and was obsolete technologically), the brewery was literally fighting for its life.

Thanks to the quality of the beer, focus on customer service and gradual development of the brand, they’ve made their dream a reality. Bernard became a well known and popular brand nationwide.

To distinguish their beer from the beers on the Czech market, they have chosen to make honest traditional unpasteurized beer, brewed with craftsmen skill from the best ingredients. Thanks to its traditional procedures, Bernard beer stands out for its harmony of fullness and bitterness.

PILSNER

As you could already learn in Brew!, Czech Republic, once known as Bohemia, has a long history of brewing and their beers are world famous. So famous that some have stolen the name from them (hint Budvar...)

Part of rich Czech beer history is Pilsner, named after the city of Plzeň (Pilsner in German), a beer developed as an answer to consumers demand for bottom fermented beers. Style which instantly became ultra popular among Czechs and spread around the world keeping it’s status till the present days. You will learn about the history of it in a video to come.

CZECH PILSNER

(Bohemian Pilsner, Czech Lager, Bohemian Lager, Czech Pilsner Lager)

The original, Bohemian one, was created by Josef Groll, a Bavarian master brewer, in mid 19th century. He combined his knowledge in brewing with Bavarian bottom fermenting yeasts, Saaz hops and light malts and made a history.

Those ingerdients gave clean, crisp, soft malty and nicely bitter beer which spread through Europe in notime and later through America.

LEŽAK

In the Czech Republic, it is still customary to label the strength of beer by the so-called degree scale (in Czech: Stupňovitost). It is expressed as a weight percentage of sucrose and is used to indicate the percentage by weight of extract (sucrose) in a solution.

According to Czech law, there are several categories of beer, regardless of colour or style. One of them is Ležak, a lager beer, brewed between 11° and 12.99° strenght.

BERNARD SVATEČNI LEŽAK

The Celebration (Svatečni) lager with a fine yeast culture is an unpasteurized beer with distinctive flavor, fine yeast taste and aroma. The beer is secondary fermented in bottle so there can be a yeasty sediment on the bottom of the bottle, and the beer can be slightly cloudy during the consumation.

🥈Silver medal – 2020, France – Lyon, Concours International De Lyon

🥇Gold medal – 2019, Belgium – Mons, Brussels Beer Challenge

🥇Gold medal – 2018, Germany – Frankfurt, Frankfurt International Trophy

STYLE: CZECH PILSNER LAGER

ALC VOL: 5,0%

BITTERNESS: n/a IBU

Opens with “PoP” sound of built in cap to impress from the first moment.

It pours dark golden in colour, not completely clear (due to second fermentation in bottle and residual yeast), with a small white head which stays long and leaves a ring around the glass.

The nose is relatively light but impressive, malty and yeasty with a nice green, herbal hoppy aroma.

The first sip is... BITTER! Screams quality! Hoppy bitterness all over, amazing, full, pure and crystal clear. Not that aggressive, overly bitter brew but the aristocratic one. For those who know things. Some malty sweetness opens after the bitterness settles down a bit. Beautiful freshly baked rustic white bread. Pure heaven!

Fresh in the exhale, almost no alcohol, just present in the back hovering in the cage of bitterness covering the palate and tongue.

Aftertaste is long for the style. Very long. Bitterness settles, then reappears again after the bread and yeast fade.

Body is surprisingly rich. Not just medium one. Fresh peppery carbonation adds to freshness and helps to round the body to perfection. Even some creaminess is felt like in those heavy rich brews...

...that hoppy bitterness is still here, lingering... forever.

This beer is simply amazing. Thou I love this style, this is objectively brewed to perfection. A masterpiece of Czech brewing.

ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED!!!

My mark: *9,5/10* (This beer style is far from the the style which you could expect to amaze you. But this beer does just that.)

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