How can you drink that stuff?

 

At a recent party the beer was piled in containers filled with ice to keep it cold enough that you couldn't actually taste it: Budweiser, Bud Light, Miller Lite, Michelob Ultra, Coors Light, and a few others in the same vein.  Americans, it seems, will drink anything labelled 'beer'.

A few years back the wife and I wound up in Prague and learned what real beer tastes like.  Suffice it to say that most of what passes for 'beer' this side of the Atlantic would not simply be poured down Czech drains (in the dead of night so that no one would know), it might even get you a prison sentence.  The Czechs would call Budweiser 'funny-tasting water' (I'm speaking here of 'American' Budweiser — there's a beer of that same name produced in Cesky Budejovice that's very different).  When you explain to them that this is what Americans call 'The King Of Beers' they would almost literally die laughing.  They throw out beer that's better than our Budweiser because they just couldn't find anyone who would drink it, even if it were free.

Eggenberg brewery in Cesky Krumlov has been making beer since 1361.  There's a brewery near the Strahov monastery in Prague that makes what I think may be the best beer in the world: Svaty (Saint) Norbert.

The Czechs really believe that life is too short to drink cheap beer.  The funny part is that beer in Prague doesn't cost any more than what we expect to pay here.  It's about $5 a pint at a bar or restaurant table.