1895 versus 1795

On a trip to my local Tesco I noticed that they had a couple of Czech beers on special offer ("AKCIO!") - cans of Staropramen and 1795, a pilsener from Ceske Budejovice's "other" brewery, the Budějovický Měštanský Pivovar.
 Then the other day I read someone thought that Soproni 1895 was one of the best Hungarian beers, so despite my rather entrenched prejudice against the big four Hungarian brewers I thought I'd give it a try. The Soproni 1895 cost about 265 forints, and the discounted 1795 cost 169ft, so there was about 1 forint per year price difference....err, no that doesn't quite work. Anyway.

The Soproni was the bottled variant, rather than canned, just to give it a sporting chance, and it was also the first of the beers I tried, so it benefitted from the first beer of the day effect, which has on several occasions made me think "well, maybe Dréher/Soproni/Borsodi isn't that bad after all."
And indeed, my inital reaction was - yes, I can taste more aromatic hoppy bitterness here than in most Hungarian macro-beers (see, I am picking up the beer tasting jargon). I could taste a pleasant bitterness on the tip of my tongue. The label makes a big deal of it containing genuine Saaz hops, and they were definitely present, if not too skilfully handled.  Unfortunately these heavy handed hops seem to have been grafted onto a typical népsör (a nice term sometimes used by the Hungarian beer bloggers, meaning something like "beer of the masses".) Wateriness, lobotomized, cardboard malt and worst of all, the inevitable, slightly acrid-sickly taste of "corn semolina". The aftertaste was of water, corn and a hint of alcohol. The colour was rather too yellow - I think perhaps that is the idea behind the corn - market research must have indicated that this market likes light, yellow beer on scorching hot summer days. There was rather too much CO2 for my taste - I like a burp as much as the next man, but these wer harsh, ripping gassy burps, and compared unfavourably with the fruity, evocative belches I had stifled a day or two before after a nice glass of Ferdinánd "Sedm Kuli" at the Ferdinand sörház. Big, profit driven brewery tries to appease beer lovers and fails.
So my raised hopes were cruelly dashed, and instead of refreshing bitterness I felt somewhat embittered. I had peculiar visions of masses of wage slaves pouring this stuff down their necks - neither complaining nor particulary enamoured of the mediocre anodyne at the end of the daily grind. Soproni 1895 is the premium version of a beer for an undemanding market, where "beer is beer." As a car it would perhaps be the sporty version of a midrange family hatchback, maybe a SEAT or Suzuki. And for the same price, why not go for the real thing?

Opening my can of 1795, I was already fairly confident that it would be better than its predecessor, but after the Soproni I really need something to restore my shaken faith. Sunshine to light up an overcast afternoon, the joyful laughter of young children to drown out the droning of cynical old businessmen. You get the idea. I can report that 1795 works much better as a first beer of the day. The depressive effect of the Soprioni took a while to subside, and I even detected an inkling of a headache coming on from it. After a while though, the 1795 began to shine through. The can didn't boast of Saaz hops, but  alook at the ingredients revealed that this is what they were, and the hops I could taste were distinctively Czech. I must confess have a soft spot for Czech beers - they conjure up memories of lazy afternoons in beer gardens, and rarely disappoint too badly.
I would place 1795 somewhere in the middle of the field of light Czech lagers. It is certainly inoffensive, has some nice hops and a hint of fruity sweetness in the aftertaste, what might be called a slightly caramelly malt (my beer tasting vocabulary is failing me here slightly.) I didn1t detect notes of alcohol, nor a foreboding of a post-industrial-beer hangover. There are better Czech beers, and worse ones. If I see it on sale again for less than 200 ft, I won't hesitate to pick up a couple of cans.

For me then, 1795 beat 1895, as I was fairly sure it would. I thought it would be interesting to see what people thought about it on Hatebeer, erm, I mean Ratebeer.com. 1795 fared about as well as I thought it would - judged against other Czech beers it was found tobe average, or perhaps below average. There seem to be plenty of beer lovers out there who really don't like Czech beer, perhaps annoyed at the ubiquity of pilsener style beer. Soproni 1895, as one of the "best Hungarian beers" seemd to almost get better reviews, but again no-one said it was their favourite. Next to other Hungarian macro-beers Soproni 1895 looks good, while 1795 Budweis looks like the poor cousin of the more famous beer from České Budějovice, while being too geared up for selling large quantities to foreign supermarkets to qualify as one of the many small, interesting Czech brewers. Stuck in the middle, but for all that, clearly better than any comparable Hungarian lager.

In the background of the photo there is a clue as to why this might be...

The Curse of Corn meal

Look at the ingredients of just about any mainstream Hungarian beer, and you are sure to find "Kukoricadara", which could be translated as corn meal or maize groats - however you say it, it shouldn't be there. This holds true for the cheapest brews, the flagship or "core lagers" - Soproni, Dreher, Borsodi and even the recently introduced wheat beer from Borsodi - Borsodi Buza. Any beer where corn is used to bulk out the ingredients is never going to be too special. (Although I'll keep an open mind about beer that is actually labelled "corn beer", which is apparently a speciality in parts of Africa.)

 There are dozens of disappointing beers here at both the mid- and budget end of the price range. My local CBA, for example stocks a range of slop with fake German names, at under 100 ft per bottle, and they certainly seem to find buyers. The Pécsi sörfözde (Pécs Brewery) seems to specialize in these, and indeed their (sort of) premium brand, Szalon sör, tends to be slightly cheaper than Dreher, Soproni or Borsodi too. I actually don't mind Szalon all that much, even if it is spoiled by the addition of cornmeal. and the dark beer they do, Szalon Barna, is pretty good.

I have never known imported Czech, Slovak and German beer here to include kukoricadara - but it is present in most of the foreign brands brewed under license in Hungary by the big breweries - HB, Zlaty Bazant etc. I looked at a can of license-brewed Kozel the other day and cornmeal wasn't listed in the ingredients, however. You can see that it isn't quite as bright yellow in colour as a typical Hungarian big brewery beer. I wonder if it was the Czech Velkopopovicky Kozel brewery which insisted on no corn being put in their beer even in its license produced version? Still, it doesn't taste much like real Czech beer - it didn't have that intense hoppiness of a pilsener, nor does it have a "sticky" body or pleasant aftertaste like the less crisp Czech lagers. But more on the decent Czech beer I've come across in Budapest later...

So, when looking for drinkable, everyday bottle or can of beer (budget for me means the 100-200ft price range), the first thing I check on the label is that there is no kukoricadara present. If there isn't, I next check who brews it - and almost invariably it isn't Heineken-Soproni, Borsodi, Dréher or Pécsi. I have seen kukoricadara once or twice in some of the cheaper, light házisör ("homemade-beer" - but it really tends to mean small breweries) - but it seems to be more the exception. They add other things apart from water-malt-hops - and with varying success, but they don't seem to have the maize habit of the big Hungarian brewers. My guess is that if one of the big brewers took the cornmeal out of one of their beers would be an admission that it shouldn't be there, and that would be a costly decision as well as an embarrasing aboutface. Maybe one day the curse of the corn will be lifted, but I am not holding my breath.

Blogging about beer in Budapest

This is a blog about my ongoing research into the availability of quality beer in Hungary. The “Budapest” in the title is there partly on its alliterative merit, and partly because that is where most of this practical, hands-on research has been carried out. This is not the first blog about beer in Hungary. It might be the first one in English, though.I await the first comment to set me straight on that score, and plenty of others.
I am not an expert on beer, nor do I drink it every day. I do like a nice beer though, and after living in Hungary for 3 years or so, at some point about a year ago I began to search for decent brews and bars. If I lived in a country with a richer beer culture, and a greater range of beer to choose from, I would probably have never started looking, or blogging about it. Necessity is the mother of invention, and lack of choice is the mother of this beer tracking hobby which I somehow seemd to have picked up.
Now, it is not not difficult to find beer in Budapest, or anywhere else in Hungary for that matter.  Budapest is full of bars, restaurants and (sort of) pubs - in fact it is fun trying to feel the nuances in the various names and social status of drinking and eating places in Hungarian: kocsma, söröző, borozó, kisvendéglő, pub, bar, presszó, eszpressó, sörház, or the celebrated romkocsma and romkert type places (trendy, alternative bars in derelict old buildings.) With all that variety, though  there is a marked lack of choice when it comes to beer. I don’t have any statistics to hand, but I’d guess that at least 98% of places serving drinks in Hungary serve beers from of one of the big three breweries, all of which are totally or mostly owned by the usual multinational beer corporations. I have only anecdotal evidence and supposition to explain why this is the case - the big breweries provide fridges, tables, ashtrays, pumps and (so I am told) pay each bar that opens a substantial sum of money to serve their beer exclusively. The same old tactics which have served them well elsewhere - and in Hungary, no-one seemed too bothered. Nobody claimed that Hungary had great beer - this is a wine producing country, and as at least one Hungarian has told me: “beer is beer.” Well, that was clearly wrong.
Fortunately, after a bit of searching on the web, in Hungarian, I found that the stiuation wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed on the surface. There are Hungarians with a taste for good beer, and there are Hungarians making and serving good beer. You just have to know where to look. Several good blogs written in Hungarian directed me to most of my Budapest beer discoveries. Some others I stumbled upon myself - (not literally) - I hope I can share some of this hoppy happinesss and malty  mysteries with the non-Hungarian speaking imbibers of liquid bread - as one Hungarian beer blog is called: http://folyekonykenyer.blog.hu/ And I too can try to be an amateur hop researcher (another blog name): http://komlo.blog.hu/, but that’s all for now, before I get beery-weary: http://serteperte.blog.hu/.