Brewery action in Olomouc

England U21 1 v Sweden U21 0

Sunday 21 June 2015

UEFA U21 Championship

Andrův Stadion, Olomouc

Twitter @ball_sup

The Beer

Some brewery action here in Olomouc. We tried to walk along the Morava river to Pivovar Chomout, in the outlying village of Olomouc-Chomoutov. We went a bit skew whiff. We ended up walking the perimeter of a cropped field & sneaking through some allotments. We cut our losses & completed the walk along the main road. Olomouc city bus 20 stops within 100 yards of the brewery/pub/restaurant. (We got that back).

The brewery kit is in an outbuilding. There is a nice beer garden. We sat inside. Nice & friendly. The younger staff seemed keen to practice their English on us. Cute. Six of their own on keg. At least 2 were billed as specials. I went;

1. Lezák Svetly 4.5% - felt we were in amber Vienna Lager territory.
2. Single Hop Ale, Citra 5% - great of its genre. Showed off the citrus tones of the hops very well.
3. Švarc 4.2% - dark, nice & spicy in the bitterness.

We also hit Pivovárek Melichárek out in Horka nad Moravou. Nice walk there from town through fields, along river banks, round fishing ponds. Fairly rustic. I couldn't see the brewing kit. But I presume it was there in an outbuilding . Essentially a garden with a beer hut. City Bus 20 more or less stops outside the door. Just three on. I went;

1. Ležák Světlý 11°. Nice sweet & bitter balance. Pale gold lager.
2. Kazbek IPA 16°. Great "Imperial" IPA. Some residual sweetness, but nice & bitter.
3 .Cascade APA 12°. Lovely. Intense ginger bitterness grows slowly.

We also did U Kuděje, a rustic cellar bar in Olomouc itself. In there, I had Polička 11°. A refreshing non-filtered light beer, with some background bitterness. There were 5 on keg from Czech micros.

I'm now on 13 Czech ticks. The Standout Beer of this leg was the Pivovar Chomout Single Hop Ale, Citra.

The Game

A fair few Swedes around. Many had all the replica shirt, painted face, horned helmet stuff going on. No genuine buffoonery. Amateurs. Some English. Buffoon in a Crusader/St George get up. Some lower league replica shirts. And normal fellas.

I'm getting into the swing of it now. Should be, I watch a lot of U18/U21 stuff at home. I'm realising these games aren't gonna be played at pace. There'll be a lack of urgency at times.

England did enough to stay in the tournament.

154/334