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District 23 Travel Tips & Hints for Members by Members Contact the webmaster if you have any suggestions for travel. Dianne Fair
Barcelona I travelled to Barcelona in the fall of 2008 and would be willing to
share tips. Tasting beer where they invented Pilsener Why fly over eight hours and a distance of 6,844 kilometres? To drink beer, of course! Not just any beer, but Czech beer, often judged the world’s best. What’s their big secret? Prized yeast and Bohemian hops, I discover, so cherished that the former is hermetically sealed and kept safe in three major European cities in case of a local disaster and the latter – would you believe that the Czechs celebrate an annual hops festival and that they built an over-sized museum referred to as the Temple of Hops and Beer! Yes, Czechs are serious about their suds. They lead rivals in per capita beer consumption at 160 litres per year, far ahead of such slackers as Ireland, Germany, Austria and Australia next in line in the pecking order. (Canada is ranked 20th) The majority of Czech beers (97%) are deliciously light, bottom-fermented beers in the Pilsner style, invented in Plzen. In Prague, beer is served almost everywhere, even in breakfast cafés! Most Czech beers are lagers, and Czechs like their beer best at cellar temperature with a creamy, tall head. When ordering draught beer, I learn to ask for the “male pivo” (10 ounces) or “pivo” (17 ounces), enjoying the smooth taste of the original Pilsner Urquell, Staropramen, Budweiser and many other Czech beers. The Czech Republic consists of three major regions – Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the middle (which favours wine) and much smaller Silesia in the north-east. Bohemia, enclosed by mountains, boasts ideal weather and fertile agricultural conditions, making it a superb area to grow the treasured hops, traced back as early as 859 A.D. Bohemian hops are so prized that King Wenceslas ordered the death penalty for anyone caught exporting cuttings. Czech Saaz hops are the international standard for hops of highest quality. I visit several mini-breweries in Bohemia, and in each case, the brew master explains the local process and leads me on a tour through cooking kettles and vats and myriad equipment that ferments and produces tasty beer.
Hmm, this might well be worth another eight hours and a 6,844 kilometres flight! Back home, in an effort to help raise Canada above the per capita rank of 20, I lift a brew with fond memories, and as the Czechs say, “Na zdravi” or “to your health!” Mike Keenan can be reached at his website: www.whattravelwriterssay.com; visit the Niagara Blog at http://www.whattravelwriterssay.com/wtwsblog2.html for more suggestions and Mike's St. Catharines Standard humour column at: http://www.whattravelwriterssay.com/indexseniorhumour.html
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