My quest for Czech beer began on a Friday afternoon. After working a half day as a high school
teacher in Germany, I race home at 95 mph on the Autobahn, grab my backpack loaded with sandwiches, snacks, and three days worth of clothes, and catch the city bus to the local train station. At the train station, I fill my lightweight six-pack cooler with cheap canned
German beer and board the train. After travelling ten minutes, I learn of railroad construction and train delays. I miss my
connection from Stuttgart to Nuremburg, which means missing my train to Prague. Finally arriving in Stuttgart, two hours later, I walk woefully to the German Train Office. Since I only have the weekend, it looks like my plans for the fest are about to be shutdown. I spend forty-five minutes trying to figure out how to get to Prague. Just as I’m about to have my money returned on my ticket and journey sadly back home, I learn of a train to a small German village on the Czech-German border. As luck would have it, there’s a train from there to Prague leaving at 5:00am the next day. Even better yet, I have a friend living in that village with an extra bed.
Yes! I’m back on track to the fest! After crashing at my friends place, I’m delivered to the
rundown train station where I catch the regional train, not the high-speed train. This equates to at least thirty stops along the way. As soon as the train starts to pick up speed, it’s slowing down again to pick up or drop off more travelers. This goes on and on for seven hours. I was happy to have fresh beers, salty chips, and smoked almonds for the journey, and especially happy to have a working toilet in the next car. I eventually arrive in Prague where upon debarking the train, I spot a poster advertising the beer fest. It’s a picture of a beautiful Czech woman, dressed in traditional clothing, holding two mugs of beer and a plate of food. I’m here!
I figure out how to get a ticket for the metro and two trains later, I’m 500 meters from the International Hostel. I check in, shower, and get directions to the fest. Back to the metro station, two more trains and an electric trolley and I’m in the vicinity. Two guys with long hair and beer drinking attitudes get off the trolley with me, so I decide to follow them. I’m in luck. They head for the festival grounds. I find the ticket booth. The old lady working the booth doesn’t speak English.
Someone standing in line helps me get a ticket for 120 Koruny ($8.00). I walk for some distance to the entrance. I’m greeted by a couple of huge, intimidating Slavic security guards. By contrast, upon entering, the festival grounds, I’m immediately welcomed by an attractive Czech girl in traditional clothing who offers to sell me beer/food tokens. Beer tokens are what I need to get the party started. She has an apron filled with shiny new golden tokens, which look a lot like American Sacajawea dollar coins. I get a fistful of coins and wander the festival grounds. It’s 2:30pm, surprisingly quiet and sparsely populated. I’m early. A gentle wafting of private conversations, singing, and violins penetrate the air. There are several tents housing musicians playing Czech folk songs. Everyone knows the lyrics and is singing along in their tents. There’s also an older graying man, strolling around, smiling from ear to ear, and playing his accordion.
Good spirits are throughout. I opt for a bench in the strolling accordion player’s area and order my first half-liter of beer: A Pilsner Uruquell. The server informs me it’s the best beer in all of Czech Republic. I smile and hand her my golden token (1 token = 39 Koruny or $2.60). The sun is shining brightly on the festival. The enticing smell of grilled steer cooking over firewood makes me pound my first beer in minutes.
Before my beer glass is drained, another server is asking me if I’m ready for another one. “Oh, but of course I am!” I order roast pork with bread dumplings and sautéed cabbage ($10.35) to go with my next glass of Pilsner Uruquell. A man in his late forties asks to sit down next to me. He notices I’m taking notes and wonders what I’m doing. After explaining to him that I’m a raging beer addict and that my sole purpose for being there was to find out what a Czech beer fest is all about, he opens up and gives me great information.
He tells me that this kind of festival is new to the Czech people. They are used to drinking beer in their local corner tavern, not outside with hundreds of people in a tent. He
hopes that it will be a success and the tourists will
come. I ask him about the beers on the menu. He said the majority of the beers come from the biggest breweries in Czech, although there are several microbrewery ales and lagers at the fest. He points out which beers to try. He asks me where I’m staying. After learning of the location, he pinpoints exactly on my vague tourist map the locations of four small microbreweries, all within walking distance. Looks like I’m going to be doing some microbrewery trekkin’ tomorrow.
In Pra
gue, store windows on every street have bottles of booze on display, sun-streaked and faded. Many of them sell different brands of Absinth/e, all with signs declaring that this is some great booze and it will fuck you up. There were also bottles of cannabis vodka in various sizes, showing labels with a green pot leaf within a yellow circle. I mention my observation to my new friend, commenting that there is some interesting alcohol to be had in Prague. He says, “Ah yes. We Czechs are a conservative people but very liberal with the alcohol.” I laugh and toast him with a mug of beer.
The majority of festivalgoers are fairly reserved. There isn’t a lot of whooping and hollering like
you find in many
American beer festivals. It’s nothing like the Oktoberfest in Munich and Stuttgart. No resemblance to the Oregon Brewers Fest; don’t expect that sort of atmosphere. It’s more of a “let’s eat, drink beer, and chat” kind of vibe. Most people come with a couple of friends, although there are plenty of families as well, but not a lot with younger children. No drinking contests or gorilla noises.
Things start to pick up around 4:30pm. The bands on the main stage are setting up. To my
elation, the music is right up my alley. Two Czech metal bands crank out the jams in the early evening. They rock and rock hard! I can’t understand the lyrics, but it’s all cool just the same. Incredible musicians led by lead singers with power vocals and rock swagger. A big screen displays the stage so that the entertainment can be seen on the path between the beer tents.
Beer token girls wander the grounds, changing money into party coins like magic. Marlboro girls, dressed in red spandex pants, black fishnet shirts, and black stiletto boots sell all things Marlboro to a receptive male audience, both smokers and non-smokers alike. They definitely catch my attention.
One difference I’ve found between most American and European beer festivals is the amount of garbage, i.e. plastic and paper products. You don’t see plastic beer cups, spoons,
forks, knives or paper plates at the European fests. They use real glass mugs, with real silverware and real plates. The garbage cans aren’t spewing over with dirty plastic and paper waste. The only wastes you see in
abundance are chicken bones, pork bones, and beef bones. At the fests, you pay a deposit for your plate and mug. You get the deposit back from the waiter or from a beer pourer. You can keep the mug if you want. It’s a great way to help the environment and be able to eat without cutting through your paper plate or breaking the tines on your spork while cutting into your schnitzel.
The biggest food vendor line is for the dry, cured, smoked sausages and salamis. They also have beautiful loaves of fresh bread for sale. Hungry beer patrons are lined up for the snacks.
The festival setting is in a park filled with willow trees and lots of shade. It spreads out over a wide area with rows of white beer tents encircling a section of the park. Beer signs are prominently displayed, announcing the brewery and the beers being served. The microbrewery tents are the most popular. In the beer department, the majority of beers are all-malt lager style. Most are Pilsners with differing strengths. There are a couple of Dunkels from the microbreweries, but that’s about it in terms of style. Both Budweiser Budvar and Pilsner Urquell have their flagship beers.
The beer tents also sell food like pickled Camembert cheese, Sinker’s sausage with devil’s sauce, Gulasch soup served in a loaf of bread, Schweinbraten (roast pork) with bread dumplings,
chicken steak, pork steak, or grilled steer. All are big heavy foods that go great with beer. Average price for a meal is $10.00-$12.00. Snacks are $2.50-$5.00. There are always bags of potato chips with different flavorings to be had; paprika, ham ‘n cheese, and pizza are the more popular.
After much sun, fresh air, food, and beer, I head out the gate and realize I should’ve pissed before leaving. That always seems to be the case. Michelle and I have a saying, “Go before you go”. I forgot the cardinal rule. I spot a row of Czech guys peeing on a fence and decide to join them at the public urinal in the park. At the end of the park, there is an old man selling braided smoked mozzarella cheese sticks, which I absolutely have to have for the metro ride back to the hostel.
Reflecting back, I find that the fest isn’t about trying out new beers, getting drunk, and singing European soccer team fight songs. It’s about celebrating Czech beer and Czech culture, both the old and the new. It’s a good excuse to get out in the sunshine, drink a cold beer, and eat grilled meats. It’s a time to celebrate friends and families. It’s a time to clink mugs and toast with fellow countrymen, locals, and foreigners alike.
Beer Fest Prague, Czech Republic. Mission Accomplished.
Black Forest
an avid rock climber and thrill-seeking adventurer. As destiny would have it, Rich winds up retiring from the Army and moving to Stuttgart to work as a civilian at the base hospital.
As we enter the tenting area, the first observations we make are the size and quality of the tents. 
They are big expensive canvas houses staked out for a serious length of time…like weeks. These are the kind of tents one finds at the base camp in Nepal. Rich comments that he could run a medical clinic in the mountains in one of the tents. In European fashion, we greet everyone in the tenting area as we cart our gear on borrowed children’s wagons from the parking area. Almost everyone is from the Netherlands. We help each other set the tents up, and in a matter of minutes, are relaxing, cooking Bubba 
Burgers on the grill and drinking Bitburger Pils. We meet a few of our neighbors and find out they are in fact staying for several weeks. Almost everyone has young kids. To our right, we have a British couple with two children, ages 8 and 10. To our left, we have a Dutch couple who also have two children, ages 2 and 4. We are camped directly across from the swing set. 
It’s not exactly the camping paradise we had envisioned. Its camping heaven for European families and not so heavenly for two American guys who want to blow off steam by getting drunk, cooking hotdogs, and howling at the moon. We crash hard that night. When morning comes, we fix breakfast of Korean noodle soup, hot tea, bread, and cheese. Everyone at the campround, after fixing breakfast, take off to explore and sight-see. Rich and I hang out at camp, drinking beer, enjoying the stillness and fresh air. I stroll around the town and along the creek, 
loving every breath of mountain oxygen while Rich naps in the afternoon. Saturday night, the families come back just in time for a major cloud burst, complete with booming thunder and lightning. Rich and I hit a German restaurant for Hefeweizens and some great grub. I have a jagerschnitzel and Rich goes with a venison dish. We walk back in the drizzle, hang out for awhile until it’s really raining hard, and then hit the sleeping bags. I love sleeping in a tent in the rain, especially when it doesn’t leak!
Arrow Rock Festival, Nijmegen, Holland 
