Budweiser Budvar will be featuring its Krausened lager at the Great British Beer Festival this year thanks to some lobbying by beer writer Adrian Tierney Jones in his capacity as Secretary of the Guild of British Beer Writers.
“I was treated to a tasting of Budvar’s yeast beer on a recent trip to the brewery. The experience was sublime and I think more UK beer enthusiasts deserve the opportunity of getting acquainted with this most exquisite of brews so I lobbied Budvar to make a few kegs available at the GBBF and I am delighted that they have agreed”.
With an ABV of 5 Krausened lager starts life in the same way as Budvar Original. Krausening is the traditional Central European method of carbonating beer and involves adding freshly fermented wort to beer that is ready to be bottled. This has the effect of preventing the yeast from going dormant as well as sharpening the flavour of the beer giving it a particularly fresh taste. A live yeast culture produces a higher content of amino-acids and B complex vitamins than a pasteurised beer, having a very positive impact on not only on the taste but on the visual appearance of the product. The foamy head for instance is characterised by being compact and stable whilst the colour of the beer is a striking golden-yellow.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that outside of the Great British Beer Festival the only place British enthusiasts are going to find this beer is either at the Budvar brewery in Ceske Budejovice in Southern Bohemia or in a couple of dozen top restaurants scattered throughout the Czech Republic.
. According to Budvar UK’s Marketing Manager Ian Moss this is because Budvar’s Krausened lager is a particularly sensitive brew with a short shelf life of no more than six weeks, and on delivery for one of those weeks the keg has to remain unmoved in one place at a temperature of six to eight degrees centigrade. “The brewery are so concerned with maintaining its reputation that the beer is only delivered by a specially developed facility to restaurants that can demonstrate the most rigorous cellar management” says Moss. “We have overcome the technical problems of presenting it in top form at the GBBF so I hope as many Budvar enthusiasts as possible will take advantage of this unique opportunity to taste one of Europe’s rarest and greatest beers”.
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