Why visitors to Prague should drink in a traditional pub
AlamyPrague is synonymous with pubs – but for the real thing, travellers should venture away from its touristy centre and seek out an old-school "hospoda".
My wife and I were sipping beers at a pub in Prague's Žižkov district when the bartender plopped two foamy pints of pilsner in front of us. We hadn't ordered them. We weren't even finished with the ones we were drinking. "Oh, we're in one of these pubs" I said, quickly covering my pint with a cardboard coaster. "When you've had enough, just do this."
Most visitors to Prague are likely to linger in its Old Town Square, marvelling at its Gothic and Baroque splendour. They'll zigzag through the narrow cobblestone streets to the 14th-Century Charles Bridge and then trudge up to Prague Castle.
Everyone should do this on a visit to Prague. But if you only explore its tourist-mobbed centre, as many people do, you'll miss out on one of the most quintessentially Czech cultural experiences: whiling away a few hours in a real Czech pub, where the beer only stops coming if you know the code.
AlamyA city synonymous with beer
It's no secret that Czechs love beer. After all, they drink nearly 150 litres of it per capita every year, making the Czech Republic the top beer-consuming nation in the world. Prague itself boasts the most pubs per person of anywhere on the planet.
Your local expert
David Farley is a food and travel writer who lived in Prague for three years and regularly writes articles for the BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian and other publications. He has probably spent a year or two of his life in Czech pubs.
But just as most New Yorkers don't dine in Times Square and most Londoners don't eat in Piccadilly Circus, you'll rarely find Praguers drinking in Old Town, where bars cater largely to outsiders.
Instead, to really get under the skin of Czech culture, you should venture to one of Prague's most atmospheric areas: Žižkov (pronounced Zheezh-kof), a gritty, working-class neighbourhood that has long had a proud reputation for its salt-of-the-earth pubs, and where the bartender's job is to make sure your glass is never empty.
Home to hilly cobblestone streets and graffiti-tagged 19th-Century blocks of flats, Žižkov is home to classic pubs such as U Vystřelenýho Oka and U Slovanské Lípy. Despite its relative proximity to the centre of town – tram number 9 will get you there in about 20 minutes – you won't find a lot of guidebook-clutching tourists wandering around.
Alamy"If you want to understand Czech pub culture, it's hard to find a better place than Žižkov," said Martin Havlin, co-founder of Prague Craft Beer Tours and a born-and-bred Žižkov denizen. "The big difference is that pubs in Žižkov are still mainly for locals. Nobody is trying too hard to look 'authentically Czech' for tourists. You'll find people having a beer after work, old guys at the same table they've probably occupied for 30 years, and a tapster who already knows what half the room is drinking."
Žižkov's traditional Czech pubs, called hospoda, are one of the few places where people from all walks of Czech society mix naturally.
Hospoda etiquette
• If you you're sitting at a table, you're expected to wait for the server to take your order. Unless it's clearly indicated otherwise, don't order at the bar yourself.
• Glasses are served wet at a hospoda, so always take the beer mat. It goes under your beer and will save you a wet table – and probably a few looks from the staff.
• In Czech lager, foam is part of the beer, not something stealing space in the mug, so don't send it back because you think the glass hasn't been filled to the line. It has.
"You can have a construction worker, lawyer, university professor and pensioner sitting at neighbouring tables drinking exactly the same beer," said Jakub Neužil, Havlin's colleague at Prague Craft Beer Tours. "Most importantly, though, they would understand that going to the pub in Czech culture isn't necessarily about 'going out drinking'. Historically, the hospoda has been an extension of the living room: somewhere to meet friends, discuss football, politics, work and life. Beer happens to be at the centre of it."
These "living rooms" are great places for travellers to meet English-speaking regulars. A simple "how long have you been coming here?" may soon lead to stories about how hospoda have played an instrumental role in Czech history.
Prague was the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and until World War Two, German was widely spoken here alongside Czech. By the latter half of the 19th Century, Czech speakers had begun separating themselves from the German population, and the Czech National Revival, which would eventually result in the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1919, was fomented in Czech cafes and pubs.
Alamy"At the time, pubs played an important role as gathering places for revivalists, patriots, politicians, writers, artists et cetera; they became centres of associational and cultural life and were one of the few places where Czech was commonly spoken," said Dr Jiří Vinopal, a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Sociology at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague.
During the heavily oppressive socialist period from 1948 to 1989, Vinopal explains that Czech pubs were "used more as an environment for escape".
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Today, pubs are as much a part of Czech life as ever – and a big draw for tourists – but it's increasingly harder to find the kind of old-fashioned hospoda where historical conversations flow as easily as the beer. The city's modern offerings tend to be cleaner and smoke free, with classic fried cheese sharing menu space with dishes like pumpkin soup and cauliflower pancakes.
AlamyHow to drink at a real Czech pub?
Havlin's advice is to simply find a busy pub in Žižkov, sit down, order a beer and don't rush. "Watch how people behave, how the beer is poured, order some Czech pub food and maybe start a conversation – and definitely don't leave after one beer." He adds, "That’s the beauty of a real [hospoda]. You're not being shown Czech culture – you're just sitting in the middle of it. And after the second or third beer, you might even start feeling like a local."
While sipping your beer and meeting regulars, you may also notice the way Czech bartenders treat Czech beer differently than the more touristy pubs in Prague's historical centre.
It starts with the bartender taking a chilled mug and re-rinsing it using a counter-top spray device to ensure there's no fat residue. Then they use the Czech-invented Lukr side-tap to pour the beer, ensuring there's at least three fingers' worth of foam; the side-tap allows the bartender more control of the foam and emits far less gas into the drink than the traditional top pull, making the beer from the Lukr side tap less likely to bloat the stomach.
Ivana Larrosa"This developed because beer has been such an important part of Czech culture," said Lucie Janečkova, co-founder of Institut PIVO, a Prague-based school providing beer-focused bartender training. "We've learned that brewing a good beer is only half of the job. What happens to it between the brewery and the guest can completely change the final experience." There is a common saying among Czech bartenders: 'The brewer brews the beer; the bartender makes it.'"
There's also an etiquette to drinking once your beer arrives. "When you get a beautifully poured beer, drink it while it's fresh – don't leave it sitting on the table for half an hour," added Janečkova. "And if you're drinking with others, clink glasses with your first beer and say 'cheers' in Czech – 'na zdraví!'"
She adds, "And perhaps the most Czech rule of all: if someone says, 'Let's go for one beer,' you probably shouldn't make any plans for the rest of the evening." And, as my wife learned, if you're in a pub in Žižkov, even the bartender won't let you go until you finally put that beer mat atop your empty mug.
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