February 26th, 2010 by Nate

A couple of years ago, whilst on a tour of Europe and before the Schengen Agreement was signed by some Eastern European countries, I completed a boarder crossing between Germany and The Czech Republic. This was the days when you had to hand over your passport to the boarder guard, sit back and wait a few hours whilst they processed you through their ‘system’.

So during this boarder crossing somwhere between Dresden and Ústí nad Labem, we had some time to kill and well what do you do when passing between Germany and the Czech Republic, you have a bier!

Now for my American Readers, you may, or for that matter, may not know about Budvar bier (yes it looks like your Budweiser, King of Beers, bier). Well there is a long held dispute between Budweiser Budvar Brewery (Budějovický Budvar, the Czech Brewery) and Anheuser-Busch as to the ownership of the bier. Essentially the bier was licensed in the USA by Anheuser-Busch 1876 and thus it’s kind of stuck. Whereas the original Budvar has been relegated, at least in the USA as Czehchvar.

Anyway, enough of the history lesson. The one thing that can be said unequivocally is that the Budvar bier is miles ahead of the American version of ‘Bud’. Please note that this is in no way an insult to Americans, just Anheuser-Busch. Which much like the Fosters conglomerate in Australia tend to homogenize the beers at their disposal. The American ‘king of beers’ is well far from deserved of the crown.

The Czech Budvar, the Pils, on the other hand is good, but it’s not spectacular. It does pale in comparison to other Czech Pils, but when laid next to it’s competing namesake biers, this is well… good. The bier is light, with a grassy and hoppy aroma. It’s easily drinkable with a nice but light golden colour. The flavour though is pretty ‘normal’ in that it just doesn’t challenge me. There is a nice, but simple grain flavour that can sometimes be overwhelmed with the alcohol flavour. It’s a midrange bier but nothing awesome.

Anheuser-Busch, Budvar, Budweiser, Czech Republic, Dresden, Germany, Schengen Agreement, Ústí nad Labem