This month’s edition of The Session is being hosted by Alistair Reece of Fuggled, and his topic for this month: Czech beer, or pivo. Alistair recounts the time he lived in the Czech Republic, and writes:

I still remember my first Czech beer in situ, I’d had a couple of Czech lagers as a college student in Birmingham, a half litre of 10° Budvar in a little pizza place among the paneláky of Černý Most. Beer was to be part and parcel of life for the duration of my stay in the country I still wistfully think of home. That my dear readers is the theme then for The Session this Friday, Czech beer. You could write about any of the following:

• reminiscences of a trip to the Czech Republic
• a Czech beer that is your go to drink
• lesser known styles of Czech beer, tmavé or polotmavé for example
• the booming craft beer scene in the Czech Republic
• small Czech breweries that deserve a wider audience
• a beer you love inspired by Czech styles

So let’s has a love song to Bohemia and her beers, the land that gave us the original pilsner, and so much more.

I wish I could come up with something meaningful about my experience with Czech beer, but it’s an area that I am woefully inexperienced in. I have checked those boxes, so to speak. Of course I have had Pilsner Urquell, probably the best-known Czech import here in the States, although I’m fully aware that it’s much better on draft in its hometown of Plzeň. (Though there was that special keg brought it for the Tampa Bay Beer Bloggers Conference…)

I may have drank other Czech imports over the years, but not that I have reliably tracked. And of course, there are plenty of American-brewed, Czech-styled pilsners in the market.

My best contribution for this month’s Session will be to point to a blog post from Jeff Alworth from five years ago: Czech Lagers in Hood River. It turns out Full Sail Brewing has been brewing Czech styles for years, in its Session series of lagers (yes, a nice synergy of Sessions!):

Several years ago, Full Sail’s James Emmerson tried a Czech tmavé and had an epiphany: it would be the perfect style to compliment Session Lager.  “When I had the tmavé, to me that was the yin to Session’s yang, just a perfect beer to pair with the all-malt helles, which is what Session is.”  And thus was born Session Black, a stealthtmavé.  I was working on a chapter about dark lager and I called Jamie up to talk about Black, which I knew was inspired by the Czech dark.  I was surprised to learn that Session Fest and the current LTD seasonal–LTD 06–are also Czech-inspired, and that Full Sail has quietly been brewing up a portfolio of Czech beers.

Full Sail first released Session Fest last year [2012], and it is probably the country’s only regular-rotation polotmavé.  Emmerson: “No roast in it all all—it’s all caramel malts, Munich, and pale malts. It’s got that same kind of creamy mid-palate again. After bringing the Session Black, then, the idea of a polotmavé for Session Fest was a natural.”

Of course I go to check the Full Sail website, and don’t see either Black or Fest listed. (Mexican Lagers, Session IPAs, and fruit are all the rage these days.) But then, Jamie Emmerson is no longer brewing, so your mileage may vary.

I don’t believe I have any Czech-worthy beer in the house, but I’ll see what I can scare up, and might update this post accordingly. Na zdravi!