Great Lakes Brews

CLEVELAND. The country is just starting to hear about this gem of a pub and brewery, but some of us have know of it for years (they opened in 1988). Nestled on the near west side of Cleveland, not far from downtown, is the Great Lakes Brewing Company.

So, on a dreary day today, we stopped in for a sampler tray of their current beers on tap...oh, and lunch. For about $8, you can get six 4-oz glasses of their finest to get you started. Today, it was the Dortmunder Gold Lager, the Burning River Pale Ale, the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, the Holy Moses White Ale, Eliot Ness Amber Lager, and Conway's Irish Ale.

We've always been somewhat partial toward their flagship Dortmunder. It's as advertised: balanced malt and hops that's smooth, slightly sweet, but still crisp. Nice golden color (not revealed in the sorry camera-phone pic at right). Top notch. Their bottled version does it justice.

Their Pale Ale is really an IPA. It's sharply hoppy and has a 6% alcohol content. Not bad, but not our favorite.

Their porter is sweet, smooth, and chocolaty, and not too heavy (which belies its namesake, the ill-fated ship). Very nice.

Their white ale, named after the founder of Cleveland, is perhaps too heavy on the coriander. Although they advertise that it's spiced with chamomile and orangepeel too, we couldn't taste it. That left it a little unbalanced.

Their Irish ale and amber lager are awfully similar, but both very enjoyable. Sure, the amber lager had slightly more hops, while the Irish ale had a tad more malty taste, but they were nearly twins in taste and alcohol content (6.2 and 6.5%, respectively). We found the amber's hops smoothed out the taste a little, perhaps gaining the edge in the competition between the two.

Do yourself a favor: visit their website for more info on their beers, and look for them at your favorite local beer store. Hello, Cleveland!

Is the War OVER?

NEW YORK. There's an apparent truce between Czech-owned Ceske Budejovice's Budvar and Anheuser-Busch. After years of fighting over the trademark rights to the name "Budweiser," they've inked a deal which will have Anheuser-Busch distributing Budvar in the U.S.

"Budweiser," a light-yellowish, beer-like soft drink, accounts for almost half of the beer sold in the U.S. The Czech beer will be distributed under the name it's been using in the States: Czechvar.

For those who don't know, Anheuser-Busch says that it's been using the trademark since 1876, almost twenty years before the Budvar brewery was established. Budvar, on the other hand, argues that the beer is named after the town it's from ("Budweis" is the German name for Ceske Budejovice), which pre-exists Anheuser-Busch by several centuries (AD 1265).

In 2006, Budvar once again won (9th time) the gold medal for best beer in Beer Courier magazine; it won a silver at the Brewers Association World Beer Cup competition in Seattle (over 540 breweries from 56 countries); and it won the Belgian International Institute for Quality's gold medal.

But Anheuser-Busch is the volume ruler, producing 143 times the beer volume of Budvar.

Pilsner Urquell--The Source

PLSEN, CZECH REP. Driving through western Bohemia today, and hungry for lunch, where better to stop for goulash than the Plzensky Prazdroj, the brewery that makes Pilsner Urquell?

Sure, we've been here many times, but they always deliver on their promise of good food and beer right from the "source" or "fountain" (prazdroj). The brewery hosts the Czech Republic's largest beer hall, Na Spilce, serving as many as 600 in it's cavernous underground hall.

For me? Wild boar goulash (guláš), with extra dumplings (chlupaté knedlíky, or "hairy dumplings"), washed down with a pilsner.

Dogs Love Beer

MARIANSKE LAZNE (MARIENBAD). New Years was great here in the western Czech Republic. Nestled between the birthplace of pilsner beer (Pilsen) and the Czech-German border is a tiny town where a great beer lives.

Chodová Planá is the home of Chodovar. The original brewery dates back to 1573, and, legend has it, a dog named Albi found the spring source for the water used in brewing and, as the good luck mascot of the brewery, was fed beer daily. His picture appears on the label.

The beer can be found in some area pubs on tap. We had the 11 degree premium beer (Zlatá Jedenáctka: "golden 11"). It's lovely: full head, perfect tiny bubbles, and a fantastic, rich color. The taste is complex, full, nicely hoppy, and has the hint of fruit on the back palate. Truly top notch, and very drinkable.

The brewery is also home to the new (opened this year), and becoming famous (it's been in the NY Times), beer health spa. That's right: for about $25 USD, they'll give you 20 minutes in a hot tub full of "bathing" dark beer, that has some additional herbs added, and then 20 minutes of heat wrap.