Budvar’s man in the North, Jonathan “Eric the Blood Axe” Barnes (right) pictured with fellow Whitby Vikings before a Boxing Day Charity swim in Whitby bay. He reckons he completed all of three yards in the ice cold water before retiring to the mead hall. According to Barnes membership of the Whitby Vikings is restricted to non-Whitby males who carry off Whitby women. Actually this is by the politically co...

14.12.2009
Rab C Nesbitt�s Local Becomes Home To Glasgow�s First Budvar Half And Half Outlet

 

 

 

 

The location for the pub scenes in that celebration of the dysfunctional, the Rab C Nesbitt television series, is now the home of   Budvar’s first Half and Half dispense unit in Glasgow. Located on Argyle Street, what was the Two Ways bar in Nesbitt days has become the Brass Monkey when it recently reopened its doors.
 Its new owners, Russell and Caroline Buchanan, say their creation is in ...

11.11.2009
Thoughts on the Beer Orders by Denis Cox, Public Relations Controller, Budweiser Budvar UK

 

One of the curious things about the timing of the Beer Orders, that as far as I know nobody has ever touched on, is that  they came into force just one month after the Velvet Revolution in what was then Czechoslovakia. To us at the time it meant that the liberated brews of a beer-super power, facing westward for the first time since 1947 , were going to find a ready sale in the UK’s pubs,  freed from the controls of their brewer owners by the UK’s ...

14.10.2009
White Horse Will Be First To Offer Budvar�s Yeast Lager

Already celebrated for pulling the unexpected out of the hat the White Horse at Parsons Green does it again when it holds its Belgian beer festival over the August Bank Holiday (August 28-31) .Accompanying the 20 Belgian cask ales brought in for the occasion is a special importation of Budvar’s fabled  yeast lager.
Hailed by those UK drinkers, who have had the privilege of tasting it, as the ultimate lager experience it has until now, because it is unpasteurised and therefor...

14.10.2009
Drink Talking for Sept 7 slot by Neville Hall, Sales and Marketing Director, Budvar UK Ltd.

 

Our Budvar brand made Bronze in the licensees’ choice of world beers in the Publican’s August 2009 Market Report . The gong was achieved, said the report, as the result of   “year after year of hard graft by a small on-trade team which has seen the brand garner some real affection in pubs.”  I think that when the pub business emerges victorious from the present multiple-front war the citation will be similar; it will be a victory won by ha...

14.10.2009
Tony Jennings Comments

I can’t remember anytime when it was more urgent for brewers to commit to putting into the hands of beleaguered retailers some product, service or idea that can either help make them a destination for new customers or just to give sales a boost.
Given the general economic downturn and the fact that government, local and national, continues to jack up its financial impositions on our business, and endeavours to hobble it in any new way it can, these ideas have got ...

14.10.2009
My Shout, July 23, Tony Jennings, CEO, Budweiser Budvar UK

 

 

 

. There must be lots of other people like me who are sick to death with not only being expected to toady to dopey woolly liberal prejudices about the evils of drink but with being asked to bankroll their propagators as well. This was rammed home to me when I was asked if Budvar would like to subscribe to a new project, a partnership between government and drinks business, to do something or other involving vastly expensive  advertising...

14.10.2009

Reflections on 44 years with the Budweiser Budvar brewery by former
brew master Josef Tolar who retried from the post December 2008

 

 I can’t remember a time when beer and brewing was not part of my life, but then I am a Czech and for us Czechs beer and brewing is inextricably entwined with both our personal and national histories, indeed with just being alive. It runs through all Czech being like a name through one of your sticks of seaside ro...

14.10.2009
Apotheosis Of Budvar�s Former Head Brewer

Josef Tolar, Budvar’s brew- master for 24 years has undergone an apotheosis, by being elected to the Czech brewing industry’s Parthenon of all-time greats and thus becoming one of the select band of 16 laureates in the Czech Hall of Brewing fame. Now Consultant to Budvar chief, Jiri Bocek for the brewery’s forward investment and technical planning Josef reckons he brewed 21,464 million hectolitres of beer during his time as brew-master.. (ends)

...

23.04.2009
Comment on Budget Duty Increase by Neville Hall, Sales and Marketing Manager, Budvar UK

 

 

 

Earlier this year I commented in an article in the Publican that it would be a complete waste of time and money to attempt any kind of lobbying to ease our lot with this hideous government simply because they hate us. This Budget proves my point.   The representatives of our industry have probably been flattered by Ministerial attempts to sweet talk them and falsely encouraged by all the supposed support from members of the house. They sh...

23.04.2009
Budvar’s Half and Half To Make Debut At Northern Bar Show

The UK’s favourite Czech brewer and the brewers of the only lager conditioned beers to win the approval of CAMRA and to enjoy membership of  the Cask Marque programme will be featuring their Half and Half for the first time at the Northern Bar Show.
Not a new beer but rather a new concept Half and Half consists of draught Budvar Original and draught Budvar Dark. Budvar Original is the golden ABV 5% brew which Nielsen reckons is in the top 50 drinks in the UK on-trade and Bud...

23.04.2009
My Shout April 16, Tony Jennings, CEO, Budvar UK

  It always ends in tears when Utopian individuals or movements get hell bent on changing our lifestyles because, according to them, it’s good for us.  It’s obvious our business is currently being subjected to such an attempt at  change from a powerful and malign coalition consisting of central and local government and the health fascists. Daily our trade is harassed by the swarms of their minions recruited to police it, further bloating an already bloated p...

23.04.2009
Comment on Budget Duty rise by Tony Jennings CEO Budweiser Budvar UK

 

 In at least two of my contributions to the My Shout column I have expressed the view as forcefully as decency allows that lobbying this government is a complete waste of time and money. They don’t know, they don’t care and they wont listen I said. How right this Budget has proved me to be. The only thing we can do is make sure we put our weight as an industry behind clearing them out at the next election. To the people who represent our industry I can only say...

23.04.2009
Czech Brewers Association Accused Of Betraying Drinkers

 

 Czech beer can be diluted with water and still be real Czech beer. This recent claim by the Czech Beer and Malt Asso...

23.04.2009
Budvar’s New Brew Master Will Assure Budvar Traditions Are Maintained

After 24 years as the master brewer at Budweiser Budvar Josef Tolar relinquished this  role on Friday (Jan 9). He is pictured here investing his successor, Adam Broz with the Budvar master brewer’s wand of office- the thermometer used by the brewery’s first master brewer Antonin Holecek in 1895. This has subsequently been passed on, a sign of initiation to this august office, to each successive head brewer, of which Broz becomes the tenth.
 The decision to relinqu...

23.04.2009
Lager for CAMRA members is a dirty word”

Recently Publican drinks writer Nick Yates wrote a piece “Lager for CAMRA members is a dirty word”- but its not just CAMRA members who think that. From my own experience I know of many people in the trade who have scant regard for what in fact is a great European beer style deserving of the same respect as the English cask ale tradition.
This is not, as some have suggested, a manifestation of classism- cask ale being for “chaps” as opposed to lager for “ch...

23.04.2009
Budvar Gives Its Name To UK’s Leading Jazz Festival

A sponsorship deal announced this week between Budweiser Budvar and Cheltenham Festivals creates the Budvar Cheltenham Jazz Festival.  Since its creation 13 years ago the event has become not only the UK’s leading jazz festival but is also regarded as a European major.
Explaining the move Budvar’s Marketing Manager Ian Moss said that Budvar became beer of the festival two years ago and since then both festival and beer have flourished together to such an extent that th...

16.01.2009
Half and Half

 

In March of this year Karel Skibinsky and Ian Taitte opened their Half and Half lounge bar in the middle of Croydon’s restaurant area to prove that an upmarket operation with imported beers at its core could cut the mustard in this part of the world. Now nine months down the line, a proper gestation period, they are able to declare their concept a success,
From a family of hoteliers in the Czech Republic, a heartland of world class beer, Skibinsky felt ther...

13.01.2009
Budvar’s New Brew Master Will Assure Budvar Traditions Are Maintained

 

After 24 years as the master brewer at Budweiser Budvar Josef Tolar relinquished this  role on Friday (Jan 9). He is pictured here investing his successor, Adam Broz with the Budvar master brewer’s wand of office- the thermometer used by the brewery’s first master brewer Antonin Holecek in 1895. This has subsequently been passed on, a sign of initiation to this august office, to each successive head brewer, of which Broz becomes the tenth.
 The deci...

01.12.2008
Q: When is a lager not a lager? A: When its Euro fizz

Do you know what a lager is?  A lot of people- too many - would reply that it’s a cold pale beer. Well that’s not true, but as there are plenty of cold pale beers around describing themselves as lagers, drinkers can be forgiven for thinking that’s what the lager style is about.
These cold pale ones, it could be a description for the living dead, are made by the mega-international brewers. Designed to be all things to all men, and women, they inevitably be...

27.11.2008
The 8% duty rise- it’s not about economics, they just hate us!

We clearly have a government that doesn’t approve of beer or the people who drink it and brew it. How else can you account for the Chancellor’s newly imposed 8%  duty rise, to offset the 13-month 2.5% cut in VAT? Its imposition means that duty on beer has risen by a staggering 18 % this year alone.  And as if to twist the knife it kicks in at the start of what used to be called “the festive season”.
 One might suppose that when VAT returns to 17.5...

24.11.2008
Budvar’s Brewmaster Wins Brewmaster Of the Year Award

Probably the best known Central European brewer in the UK,  Budweiser Budvar’s  brewmaster, Josef Tolar  is the winner of  the 2008 award for the Czech Brewmaster of the Year. It is made annually by the SPP, the Czech equivalent of the Campaign for Real Ale.
Committed to preserving the quality of Czech beer along with its traditions the SPP annual awards are regarded as the most prestigious and most eagerly awaited in the Czech beer calendar.
Th...

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