Monday night I attended a presentation at the Toronado for the San Francisco launch of Krusovice, a beer from the Czech Republic. An old friend of mine, Dave Deuser, is the local rep. for the beer, which is (or was, but more on that in a minute) part of the Binding Group, a German company that owns several breweries, including DAB, Radeberger, Clausthaler, and Tucher. He had Krusovice’s head brewer and a translator who works for the brewery in tow.
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Binding USA is bringing two of Krušovice’s beers into the U.S. market, the Imperial and the Cerne. The Imperial, which they call a Czech Premium Lager, is very clean with soft, round flavors. I was quite impressed with it. It used all Saaz hops and was right up there with the best tasting lagers I’ve had. The Cerné is a dark lager made with pale and specialty malts. At only 3.8% abv, it was very easy drinking. It had delicious sweet malt flavors.
The presentation was very thorough and included a thick, spiral bound book that the brewer went over page by page, calling out “turn page now” in his best Germanic command voice. The Royal Brewery of Krušovice has a rich history, having been founded around 1517. In 1581, the brewery was purchased by Emperor Rudolf II, whose visage still appears on the labels. When he moved his capital from Vienna to Prague, he moved it to the nearby town of Krušovice and it became a “Royal Brewery,” a distinction it continues to claim to this very day. In 1945, after World War II it became the property of the state, in this case Czechoslovakia, until it was privatized in 1991 and then was purchased by the Binding Group in 1994. Binding completely modernized the brewery facilities and began exporting the beer in 1997. As of 2005, Krušovice was the 5th largest brewery in the Czech Republic. All their beers use a double decoction method, which is fairly common in Germany and for lagers. Many craft brewers use infusion mashing since it requires less equipment and is generally quicker, and while there is a debate about which method is better, it seems moot as long as the end result is both what you were trying to achieve and tastes good. Krušovice is currently sold throughout most of Europe, Australia and now North America (or at least in the U.S. and Canada). 63% of Krušovice is sold in kegs, 32% in bottles and 5% in cans. It’s apparently wildly popular in Russia, which accounts for more than half of all exports. |
And that brings us to the weird part of the evening. Halfway through their tour of the States, they got the word that Krušovice had been sold to Heineken, who was looking to make greater inroads into the Russian beer market. So it was a testament to everybody’s professionalism that presentation went as well as it did. My friend Dave didn’t now what his role would be now regarding Krušovice, but it’s likely Heineken will bring in their own people and the Binding folks won’t be involved any longer. As for the brewer, I’m sure he must have felt at least a twinge of uncertainty for his own fate, but everybody continued to champion the brand as if nothing had changed. I’m not sure I could have done as well under those circumstances.
It was a fun and informative evening, with two very tasty beers to make it all the more enjoyable.
Krusovice’s head brewer (at left) and his translator.