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.
It’s a strategy reminiscent of Thailand’s Global Thai Program, a form of edible soft power that was launched in 2002 to promote Thai restaurants and cuisine abroad. That effort led to a boom in Thai eateries around the world and helped put Thailand on the global culinary map. At the programme’s start, there were 5,500 Thai restaurants outside Thailand; by October 2023 there were nearly 17,500, according to some estimates. The Economist quickly coined the term “gastro-diplomacy”. And now the Czech Republic is following in Thailand’s footsteps with its six-year-old mission of “beer diplomacy”. After all, the thinking goes, unlike Thai cuisine, Czech food isn’t exactly a big hit with foreigners. But one thing the Czechs do well is make beer.
I got the chance to see the programme in action when I was invited to join the brewers for a few nights. One evening, we crammed into a small craft brewery and taproom called Pioneer Beer in the northern Bohemian town of Žatec, home to the highly sought-after Saaz hops that have been essential ingredients in Czech-style lagers since Pilsner Urquell created the world’s first golden lager in 1842. The brewers gravitated to head brewer Michal Havrda and began peppering him with questions, throwing around terms like “decoction” and “flocculation”. A few days later, they had spirited conversations with Vaclav Berka, Pilsner Urquell’s now-retired beer master in the town of Plzeň, as well Adam Brož, the current head brewer at Budvar in České Buděvice, two of the biggest breweries in the country.
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A few days earlier, at the popular gastropub Lokál in Prague, we met Lucie Janečková, a manager at the Institut Pivo, where she teaches courses on proper beer pouring methods and gives beer-focused tours in Prague. “It makes me really sad to see a bartender destroying beer with a bad pour,” she said. “Czech beer culture is all about respecting the process of serving the beer and we’re trying to teach that to foreign beermakers and tapsters because we’ve been doing this pretty much longer than anyone else in the world.”
