Adventure #027- Green Beer

 

The Czechs celebrate Holy Thursday, or Zelene Ctvrtek (Green Thursday), with the true Czech spirit.  By drinking beer.  Green Beer to be exact. One brewery, Starobrno, sells green beer that was specifically brewed for this day.  Only certain pubs in the Czech Republic carry it.  This is a relatively new tradition for this country, but as usual, anything to do with beer is very popular.  You must go to the pub early in order to get some.  So on Thursday evening, we checked the website then headed out to the closest place on the list.

It was just around the corner and we were excited to drink a lot of beer then stumble home.  When we got there, we discovered that it was closed for reconstruction.  We were quite surprised as this bar had just opened a month ago (typical Czech thing to do however).  So standing in the middle of the sidewalk, we all crowded around Martins web-capable phone to see if we recognized any of the other bars on the list.  We found one we knew and headed that direction.

When we arrived at the second pub, there was no place to sit and the waiter told us that they were out of green beer.  It was almost 9pm and we were starving so we decided to sit and enjoy pizza and a regular beer instead.  We were all sad that there was no more green beer but had a great time anyway with our group closing down the restaurant at the end of the evening.

Resigned to not having any green beer, I quickly forgot about it and just enjoyed my regular beer for the rest of the week.  But then on Saturday, Martin and I were heading to Atmosphere (an amazing restaurant) when we passed a Czech pivnice (beer hall) that was advertising green beer in their window.  We went in and asked the waiter if they still had it.  They did so we decided to eat there instead.

They brought out our green beer and my first thought was, "wow, it's really green!"  I was expecting something more yellowy-green than pure green.  But it was the color of grass, although it didn't taste like it.  It tasted like normal beer, but a bit sweeter (not dark beer sweet) and smoother.  It was almost minty.  They brew it with a secret recipe of herbs to get the color and flavor.

Our neighbors kept looking at our glasses and soon one couple ventured to ask what we were drinking. When they heard the story of the beer, they decided to try one also. The table next to them asked the waiter what we were drinking, they ordered a round and took lots of pictures.

We liked our green beer so much that we had a second. With more time, a third, fourth, fifth would have been a definite possibility! Oh well, there's always next year! Who's going to join me?