California Club, Karlovy Vary 🇨🇿

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Location: Tyršova 1753/2, 360 01 Karlovy Vary, Czechia

Venue Type: Backstreet Bar / Pub / Drinking Den / Herna Bar

Year of Inscription: 2017 (Founder Member)

 

EBG Rating:7.5/10
Choice/
Quality of Drinks		❤️❤️❤️
Style/
Décor		❤️❤️❤️
Atmosphere/
Character		❤️❤️❤️❤️
Amenities/
Events		❤️❤️❤️❤️
Value For Money❤️❤️❤️❤️
DescriptionA name such as California Club doesn’t exactly scream ‘excellent bar’, but put aside your reservations in this case. Karlovy Vary is a bit of a special case, as the stretch down the river is lacking any sort of late night drinking spot. The town is one of the oldest ‘resorts’ with its thermal springs making it a mecca for Russians and elderly Germans, and has much to recommend it in general, apart from the drinking scene.

Ordinary folk in Karlovy Vary live the other side of the river, or in effectively dormitory suburbs that are quite a way out of town, too far to realistically walk there and back if you’re based in the centre.
In order to get a beer that isn’t a crummy Krusovice for double the price in a drab restaurant or generic hotel bar, head up the hill on the south East bank where there are a few enclaves of local life, the best by far being California Club.

You still won’t be enamoured when you arrive, as the tacky American sign on the building and the energy drink sign outside still isn’t sending out any great signals. You can probably almost smell my desperation at this point as I dived inside.

However, when you enter you’ll find a bar teeming with local life and plenty of facilities making it worth hanging around for a drink. Pub games, live sport, and a large curved bar area serving a range of decent lagers, most importantly some pretty damn good Pilsner Urquell, cheaper than you’ll find in the centre of Prague for sure. The bar also serves as a ‘Herna’, a weird Czech thing where there is a partitioned gambling area based in the pub.

The décor is a little on the dated side, that isn’t all bad, as there are some nice cushioned lounge style seats which makes a nice change from the relentless hard bench seating of Czech Pivnices, but generally it’s nothing to write home about.

Ultimately it’s a chance to escape the centre, and will highlight just how hollowed out the centre of Karlovy Vary is, once the day trippers leave and the elderly hotel residents retire to bed. Thankfully there are places like this on the fringes where locals go, and although one might get a little sniffy at some of the stylistics, the beer is high quality, dirt cheap, it’s comfortable, warm and there’s lots to do. I wouldn’t usually have considered visiting a drinking hole called ‘California Club’, least of all solo in Eastern Europe, but the call of a beer is strong; necessity is the mother of invention.