The European nation pioneering 'beer diplomacy'

For the last six years, the globe's top beer tourism destination has been quietly inviting brewers to the Czech Republic to teach the world how to drink properly.

The beer drinking began at 10:39am. Twenty brewers had just walked into a bar – a bar in a brewery in the Czech Republic, one of the world's great beer-making nations. I held up my mug of burnt-orange-hued pilsner, a three-finger-wide layer of foam crowning the top, and clinked glasses with Liam Taheny, a craft brewer from South Australia.

When I asked him what impressed him most about Czech beer culture, he didn't hesitate. "The knowledge of beer and everything related to beer here is just astounding," he said.

"You mean when you talked to Czech brewers?" I asked.

"I am talking about ordinary people," he said. "They talk about beer the way only, say, a head brewer or a total beer geek might back in Australia."

Taheny, head brewer at Brightstar Brewing, was one of 20 brewers from Australia, Canada and the United States recently invited by the Czech Ministry of Agriculture to spend five days soaking up Czech beer culture. But it wasn't just a daze of imbibing beer. The itinerary included meeting macro and microbrewers, hops farmers, bartenders and pub owners – all part of the Czech government's experiment in "beer diplomacy".

The Czech Republic – and specifically Bohemia, its westernmost region – has long been famous for its pivo (beer). After all, locals have been brewing the sudsy stuff here since at least 993 CE. Czechs consume more beer per capita than any other nation on Earth (and nearly twice as much as the second-most beer-loving nation, Austria); and in many places in the country, beer is cheaper than bottled water. No wonder the nation touts itself as the world's top beer tourism destination.

Yet, among true beer aficionados, Czech lager has long been relatively underrated, overshadowed by Belgian ales, Bavarian brews and the global IPA boom. You could chalk it up to the region's tumultuous past century: 41 years behind the Iron Curtain meant Czech beers were hard to find abroad, and in the decades since communism ended in 1989, Czech breweries had to privatise and modernise, updating their brewing technology.

But things are changing, and lagers – especially Czech-style lagers – are finally starting to get more recognition. Since 2019, a network of diplomats and brewers have been quietly working behind the scenes to advance the awareness of Czech beer and inspire foreign brewers to make authentic Czech-style lager: crisp, full-bodied with bitter tones, often with a buttery after taste and poured with large foamy head.

The Ministry of Agriculture is not keeping statistics, but since the government began welcoming brewers from around the world, Czech-style lagers from craft brewers have been popping up across North America. (Australian brewers were only recently added to the annual beer summits.)

It's a strategy reminiscent of Thailand's Global Thai Program, a form of edible soft power that was launched in 2002 to promote Thai restaurants and cuisine abroad. That effort led to a boom in Thai eateries around the world and helped put Thailand on the global culinary map. At the programme's start, there were 5,500 Thai restaurants outside Thailand; by October 2023 there were nearly 17,500, according to some estimates. The Economist quickly coined the term "gastro-diplomacy". And now the Czech Republic is following in Thailand's footsteps with its six-year-old mission of "beer diplomacy". After all, the thinking goes, unlike Thai cuisine, Czech food isn't exactly a big hit with foreigners. But one thing the Czechs do well is make beer.

I got the chance to see the programme in action when I was invited to join the brewers for a few nights. One evening, we crammed into a small craft brewery and taproom called Pioneer Beer in the northern Bohemian town of Žatec, home to the highly sought-after Saaz hops that have been essential ingredients in Czech-style lagers since Pilsner Urquell created the world's first golden lager in 1842. The brewers gravitated to head brewer Michal Havrda and began peppering him with questions, throwing around terms like "decoction" and "flocculation". A few days later, they had spirited conversations with Vaclav Berka, Pilsner Urquell's now-retired beer master in the town of Plzeň, as well Adam Brož, the current head brewer at Budvar in České Buděvice, two of the biggest breweries in the country.

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They also spent time at Lukr, an innovative beer tap-making company in Plzeň, who make side-pull taps that better regulate the flow of beer, allowing the finished pour to have that classic, creamy, thick head of foam that is so characteristic of Czech beer.

"If you pour it right with a proper head, the foam is going to add a sweetness and creaminess to your drink that will remain on your palate all the way to the bottom of your glass," explained Ondřej Rozsypal, Lukr tap master and 2022 Master Bartender of the Year.

When Lukr began selling their specialty Czech lager taps in 2015, they sold a dozen to North America. Now they sell up to 2,000 a year to bars and tap rooms across the US and Canada – and the beer diplomacy efforts are one reason for the increase in popularity.

A few days earlier, at the popular gastropub Lokál in Prague, we met Lucie Janečková, a manager at the Institut Pivo, where she teaches courses on proper beer pouring methods and gives beer-focused tours in Prague. "It makes me really sad to see a bartender destroying beer with a bad pour," she said. "Czech beer culture is all about respecting the process of serving the beer and we're trying to teach that to foreign beermakers and tapsters because we've been doing this pretty much longer than anyone else in the world."

As the demonstration at Lukr showed, Czechs revere the beermaking process – and this new initiative is the latest example of how this beer-loving nation is teaching the world how to drink properly.

"You have to be really good at brewing to make a very good Czech-style beer. And that's exactly what they do here," said Meghan Michels, a brewer at Holy Mountain Brewing Company in Seattle, Washington. "They've been doing it for centuries. You really have to come here and taste the real thing to get a true sense of how Czech lager should taste."

Ryan Moncrieff, owner and head brewer of Rafter R Brewing Company in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, agreed. "We have Czech beer in Canada and it just doesn't taste the same. It's never very fresh," he said. "From a brewer's perspective, the only way to know the true taste of Czech beer is to go to the source. That way, if a Czech person comes to my brewery and says, 'this tastes like home', I'm going to know that I nailed it."

The truth is, that like a lot of consumed products, Czech beer doesn't travel well. While these brewers can try their best to replicate authentic Czech brew, this hard truth debunks the great gospel of globalisation, that in the developed world we can get whatever we want, when we want. Yet, to experience Czech beer as it was truly made, you have to head to the Czech Republic.

But what the Czech government's programme will ultimately do is to inspire a deeper curiosity from beer drinkers about what it's like to taste Czech beer in the Czech Republic.

As I held a freshly poured lager, I toasted my new friend, Taheny, and he said, "Here's to our eventual return to the Czech Republic!"

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