Product Description

This is an authoritative and entertaining guide to the breweries, beers, bars and pubs of the Czech lands, written with an insider's eye for detail and a beer-lover's thirst for great pivo, the Czech national drink. This unique volume features a comprehensive portfolio of the best beer-bars and pubs in the capital city of Prague, now a major tourist destination visited by over 12 million people each year. International travel writer Evan Rail has devoted six years to tracking down the best beers throughout the ancient kingdoms of Bohemia and Moravia, the two halves that make up today's Czech Republic.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #229559 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Evan Rail moved to Prague in 2000, for what was supposed to be one year. Having discovered kvasnicove pivo, he decided to prolong his stay. A frequent contributor to the New York Times travel section and the author of the first Prague Post Dining Guide, he writes regularly about food and drink throughout Central and Eastern Europe

Customer Reviews

Brilliantly Comprehensive
Owning the recently-published 'Good Beer Guides' to Belgium and Germany I was expecting great things from this volume. My expectations were exceeded. Evan Rail writes with the same passion for detail and comprehensiveness as Steve Thomas and Tim Webb.
Don't be fooled by the prominence of Prague in the title: this is a comprehensive guide to the whole of the Czech Republic. It is organised by region, by brewery (many of them brew pubs, of course). But within these chapters special, recommended or noteworthy pubs are also featured.
Prague and Brno receive their own chapters devoted to recommended pubs - very handy for hunting down unpasteurised versions of the big brewers' beers or beers from the more unusual breweries e.g. Ferdinand, Cerna Hora, Svijany etc.
There are bags of beautiful photographs littered throughout the book and the maps pinpoint every brewery and every featured pub. There is an excellent 'walk-through' Czech beer styles which clears up a few ambiguities (Tmave really is the same as Cerne), and throws up a few others.
But best of all are the touches that go the extra mile: the lists of beer shops in Prague; beer hotels; and better still, Czech beer festivals.
No lover of good beer or the Czech Republic should be without this guide. See you next year...

Encyclopaedic, entertaining, and astute
This book is a fantastic read for: anyone drinking Czech beer in their home country; thinking about visiting the Czech Republic; planning a trip to the Czech Republic; visiting the Czech Republic; or even LIVING in the Czech Republic. It's fun to read even if you don't particularly like beer, because the sheer enthusiasm with which it's obviously written, plus the fascinating history, lore and cultural tidbits related to beer make the book interesting for just about anyone. More relevantly, though, it is - unbelievably - the first, so far the only, modern, astute and just about complete ("just about" because the Czech brewery scene keeps changing) guide to the world of Czech beer. The author's unretouched, slightly murky photographs, obviously taken while traveling to the most obscure corners of the country in search of fine beer, add an extra dose of charm, not to mention authenticity.

Highly recommended.

Great guide - going to Prague in a couple of weeks, can't wait
Not, I was originally disappointed to find out, a guide akin to The Good Beer Guide. This book has far more content about the breweries than pubs in Prague. However, it turns out that this is in no way a bad thing. Prague has thousands of bars but, as the book points out, this doesn't mean to say that there's a huge diversity in beers available in them. The Czech beer guide waxes lyrical about the breweries and beers, and then suggests places where you might be able to get them.
If there is a criticism... the maps aren't brilliant, and perhaps there could have been more pubs listed... but no matter, this is a great guide.
To add my own two-penneth, I would thoroughly encourage visitors to forget the tourist weary town centre and hop on a tram for a few minutes for somewhere like Zizkov - where the beer is cheap and excellent, and you're unlikely to bump into stag parties. Take this guide, along with a decent map, with you - its a wonderful place.