The European nation pioneering 'beer diplomacy'
For the last six years, the globe's top beer tourism destination has been quietly inviting brewers to the Czech Republic to teach the world how to drink properly.
The beer drinking began at 10:39am. Twenty brewers had just walked into a bar – a bar in a brewery in the Czech Republic, one of the world's great beer-making nations. I held up my mug of burnt-orange-hued pilsner, a three-finger-wide layer of foam crowning the top, and clinked glasses with Liam Taheny, a craft brewer from South Australia.
When I asked him what impressed him most about Czech beer culture, he didn't hesitate. "The knowledge of beer and everything related to beer here is just astounding," he said.
"You mean when you talked to Czech brewers?" I asked.
"I am talking about ordinary people," he said. "They talk about beer the way only, say, a head brewer or a total beer geek might back in Australia."
Taheny, head brewer at Brightstar Brewing, was one of 20 brewers from Australia, Canada and the United States recently invited by the Czech Ministry of Agriculture to spend five days soaking up Czech beer culture. But it wasn't just a daze of imbibing beer. The itinerary included meeting macro and microbrewers, hops farmers, bartenders and pub owners – all part of the Czech government's experiment in "beer diplomacy".
The Czech Republic – and specifically Bohemia, its westernmost region – has long been famous for its pivo (beer). After all, locals have been brewing the sudsy stuff here since at least 993 CE. Czechs consume more beer per capita than any other nation on Earth (and nearly twice as much as the second-most beer-loving nation, Austria); and in many places in the country, beer is cheaper than bottled water. No wonder the nation touts itself as the world's top beer tourism destination.
Yet, among true beer aficionados, Czech lager has long been relatively underrated, overshadowed by Belgian ales, Bavarian brews and the global IPA boom. You could chalk it up to the region's tumultuous past century: 41 years behind the Iron Curtain meant Czech beers were hard to find abroad, and in the decades since communism ended in 1989, Czech breweries had to privatise and modernise, updating their brewing technology.
But things are changing, and lagers – especially Czech-style lagers – are finally starting to get more recognition. Since 2019, a network of diplomats and brewers have been quietly working behind the scenes to advance the awareness of Czech beer and inspire foreign brewers to make authentic Czech-style lager: crisp, full-bodied with bitter tones, often with a buttery after taste and poured with large foamy head.
The Ministry of Agriculture is not keeping statistics, but since the government began welcoming brewers from around the world, Czech-style lagers from craft brewers have been popping up across North America. (Australian brewers were only recently added to the annual beer summits.)
It's a strategy reminiscent of Thailand's © BBC
