Down-to-earth, dog-eared, unvarnished but rarely dull. The ‘hyper-local’ dive bar / boozer / pajzl, or whatever you refer to it in your native tongue may be intimidating at first (sometimes at second, third, etc) but these places can be great fun and an eccentric source of charm.
Hyperlocal?
Seems a fitting term to use for venues where the patrons are not only customers, regulars, family, but stakeholders and guard dogs. You are entering territory where you have been made – accidentally or otherwise – to feel like an outsider! Your best hope is to ingratiate yourself or, failing that, make yourself the smallest target possible, by knowing the necessary pleasantries then minding your business and melting into the scenery.
In smaller venues, this is close to impossible – merely by entering their domain you have announced yourself as a curiosity! Be prepared to be talked to, stared at, joked about. Good humour and a sense of adventure are absolute musts.
What is the appeal of entering a place where your best hope is not to be welcomed but tolerated?
It is not only about drinking where the locals drink, but an environment where you can experience conversation or patter between regulars, music and dance from local performers, unusual rituals and etiquette that may not have been observed before, differences and distinctions between countries and cultures. Perhaps the chance to join in with these.
In a strange way, the absence of pretense in humble surroundings is a breath of fresh air – even when the air itself is thick with fug.
Hyperlocals also often have the benefit of appealing to a cross section of society. When culture is becoming atomised, old and young are mixing less and less – many of these places buck the trend. Sure, this is often brought together through a shared love of low prices – but who cares if it makes that difference?
A largely 21st century development. Changes in planning regulations made it easier for retail/shop space and residential property to be converted into licensed bars, turned into miniature versions of pubs. Micropubs seemed to spring up fastest in Kent and across the South East before becoming common in almost every town of decent size.
It is common for micro-pub owners to be dabbling in their early retirement running a bar as a semi-hobby to keep themselves occupied. The owner’s friends and family are often found by the bar, making them close to living rooms.
Their small size means conversation is overheard, effectively shared which acts as a natural catalyst for cross-chat and speaking with strangers. Often dog friendly which again seems to encourage conversation.
Micro-pubs score are relatively low on the intimidation scale – they are usually welcoming, but in some cases you can be drawn into “banter” (or craic / patter if you don’t like that word) where regulars test you out to discover what you’ve got. Sometimes cliquey, and depending on that group and their values, there can be unchecked comments flying around.
Hygiene Rating: 3/5 🧽🧽🧽
A mixed bag. Most are fine – in fact, some can be overly sterilised but, by the same token, some are pretty foul and smelly too. This tends to be guided by the values of the owners and the DIY nature of the business. There is no area manager to come around and tell the staff to sort their shit out.
Eccentricity Rating: 2/5 🥴🥴
As Micro Pubs attempting to ape existing formats (usually craft beer bars, pubs, ale houses), these aren’t the quirkiest of places, but they offer more variety and identity than any chain operations, while their compact size means they will always be more unusual social spaces.
The Tasca/Adega/Ultramarino/Bodega (Portugal 🇵🇹/ Spain 🇪🇸)
Portuguese and Spanish locals have what appears a natural filter screening out tourists and outsiders without seeming like they are even trying. A combination of intimidating format, absence of information to refer to, language barrier, absence of personal space and sometimes boisterous clientele achieves this.
Sometimes it is to their cost – we’ve chatted with some who have complained at lack of outside interest and would prefer to have more footfall.
The Portuguese Tasca or Adega can be as grand as a restaurant (although restaurants have really co-opted what are working class terms), but they are also common to mean a humble snack bar offering small plates alongside glasses of wine or beer. Normally starkly lit with aluminium bar counters and a solitary beer tap. Polaroids and cuttings of old events and highlights pinned behind the bar, old folk perched on bar stools. Families gesticulating wildly over their plates of food.
In Spain, Bodegas, Ultramarinos and Vermuterias are often highly informal places for clutches of people to stand rather than sit, which can be isolating as a solo visitor. There is no alternative but to get stuck in – go to the front, explain what you want. The problem is isn’t obvious what’s for sale. The locals don’t need a menu because they know what’s on offer – these places have been serving the same stuff for decades.
While service and hospitality is normally willing – most just want to know what you want – the format and etiquette in these places is a maze to navigate, and until you’ve experienced a few dozen it will still feel opaque.
Clientele are not hostile as a rule, but you can encounter times where you feel like an interloper rather than a welcome guest. This is keenly felt in cities with over-tourism. You’ll pick up on that very quickly.
Hygiene Rating: 3/5 🧽🧽🧽
It is certainly common place for Portuguese and Spanish bars to raise an eyebrow when it comes to hygiene. In Andalusia it is not uncommon for leftovers to be ditched onto the floor, which is swept up every hour or so – in theory. Some kitchens and cooks also do not give off the appearance of maintaining the highest or even minimum accepted regulatory standards. That said, often the front of house is kept in pristine condition. Perhaps the gleam off that brushed aluminium has more uses than you’d think.
Eccentricity Rating: 4/5 🥴🥴🥴🥴
Just as you thought you’d cracked these bars, you’ll visit one which changes the format up. Do I sit, do I stand, what the hell is this food I’m looking at? What is everyone else doing? Why are the servers shouting at customers? There’s a danger of a faux-pas at any moment which will announce yourself to the whole bar as the idiot stranger. When you factor in the frequently volatile nature of staff and owners, this is a type of bar that is anything but predictable.
One of the Kings of this format, there is no sign outside declaring a pub to be a Pajzl (derogatory/endearing term used by Czechs to denote a fun battered, characterful old boozer). Anything from a Hospoda, Hostinec, Restaurace, Krčma, Piváreň, etc can be a pajzl. These are pubs you have to sniff out from a few common themes. Being honest, it takes a while before you will have a satisfactory frame of reference.
The best have a particular glory to them. Luxuriating in their lack of artifice and pretension; their inaction and intransigence a badge of honour. Their appeal is not drawn only from recent nostalgia, but sewn into national folklore, with the historic, long-gone Jedová Chýše (aka The Poison Hut) acquiring a legendary status as a drinking den of iniquity and flamboyant levels of squalor and dilapidation. Even today, certain pubs are labelled as Poison Huts on Google reviews, TripAdvisor, etc.
In a Pajzl you can have fun, forget your worldly cares, place life on pause. They also provide a relief from the sometimes stifling formalities of Czech pubgoing – a total stranger may greet you “Ahoj” (informal) rather than the standard “Dobry den”, the servers can range from down-to-earth cool dudes to the most bone-chillingly icy and unwilling lords of their domain, cries of “ty vole!” are issued back-and-forth. The clientele accommodated in a Pajzl, well, that ranges from the most straight-laced city gents to specimens who you are realistically concerned the skin may slide off their bodies onto the pub floor.
How to spot these? We can’t guarantee it, but we’ve always found that pub windows with circular inset patterns correspond to a certain era of pub building and are a good sign you’ll be treated to a Pajzl.
Intimidation rating: 5/5 😱😱😱😱😱
A choreography of nerve-shredding elements prompt you to “turn back, flee!”. A mass of turning heads at your arrival, the need to greet servers and customers as though you were familiar, then afterwards their stares and growls of reaction that signify No, we have never met (and, frankly, we don’t much like the look of you). A heavy, often clandestine environment of boozing, like intruding on a collective dirty secret.
However, things generally settle down and before long – especially if you are in company, you will blend into the background. Sometimes, if individuals or staff feel you have handled yourself well you will be saluted on your departure or, such as we have experienced on rare occasions, treated to a handshake, almost as a compliment for having the balls to even try to drink in there.
Hygiene Rating: 1/5 🧽
Not exactly known for their fastidiousness when it comes to sanitation or indeed regimes of any sort, there are usually knowing online reviews about whether or not to trust the food in a Pajzl. Occasionally there will be a surprise as a grotty pub gives way to the most spotless of toilets you’ve ever seen, but just as often you’ll be hoping your toilet visit is, let’s just say, brief.
Eccentricity Rating: 4/5 🥴🥴🥴🥴
The cast of characters in a Pajzl is often what makes them so fun, a form of people watching that could become a spectator sport. Wild growls and grunts may emerge from shady characters playing cards, darts or three cushion pool, meanwhile outcasts, oddballs and inbetweeners young and old are forging their place in the world.
The opposite of clean-shaven Scandi values that is portrayed to the rest of the world, the brunt værtshus, or ‘brown pub’ is nothing less than a national phenomenon, basically the default definition of what a traditional pub is in Denmark.
Also going by terms like Vinstue or Bodega (owing to historic alcohol licensing machinations), these pubs show a couple of things – that working class culture is still tightly bound in Denmark, and that Northern Europeans want a warm room, cosy surroundings and alcohol inside them.
Cheap booze, gambling and smoking are the common themes in these pubs, which are usually decked out in retro signage and wood fittings amidst a palette of browns and reds.
For many months of the year, the outside is the enemy in Denmark, and “hygge” culture means much more than a marketing ploy to sell lampshades, coffee and cardigans. It also denotes the sense of belonging, both within a space but among a people. In Denmark that means old and young together, a mixture that makes these pubs sing.
For many, the smoke and dingy surroundings may intimidate, and some pubs off the beaten path may result in a few older heads turning, but the usually decent service and an overall tolerant atmosphere will put you at ease.
Hygiene Rating: 3/5 🧽🧽🧽
Nothing shrouded in a plume of cigarette smoke is really going to be clean, is it? All the same, there is usually reasonable effort made to clean surfaces and toilets.
Eccentricity Rating: 2/5 🥴🥴
As with all these bars, the den-like nature of a brunt værtshus pulls in a range of characters that would perhaps be uncomfortable elsewhere. However, this is Denmark, so they aren’t normally as florid or eye-opening – which is not to say such individuals aren’t out there! Often privately-run with the personal touch ensuring more distinction than corporate or chain ownership.
Honourable mentions
If you’re looking for cliquey local life in Germany 🇩🇪 then a village pub like a Gasthof will be your place to go, although they aren’t true dives, so instead find a raucherkneipe (smoking pub) as they can have the right combination of cosy, cliquey, local and unvarnished. The Pilsstube also applies – highly informal, lacking airs and graces even by the direct standards of Germany – and can be particularly intimidating.
In France 🇫🇷, Tabacs, or the Tabac PMU are their closest example – imagine a petrol station store or a newsagents where you’re allowed to drink and gamble. Yeah… great, eh?
Balkans Caffe Bars are too much of a catch-all term to include here, but you will find some that fall into this format, likewise the ‘Bife’ in Serbia 🇷🇸. Smoking and a strong contingent of regulars, locations that will not expect outsiders and a superficial gruffness to service and customers. Similar places can be found in Bulgaria 🇧🇬 and Romania 🇷🇴 but are far less common.
In Poland, the knajpa, old style small pubs with let’s say ‘grown-up’ clientele technically exist but are almost extinct. Likewise in the Baltics, because the neighbourhood/suburban boozer has almost vanished entirely.
Certain Irish 🇮🇪 pubs outside the larger towns and cities operate as grocery or hardware stores and these can be particularly characterful, locals-only venues. Some village pubs or roadside pubs are in such remote areas that they are unused to newcomers and such is the Irish knack of conversation, the ‘outsider experience’ is a guarantee, even a rite of passage.
The Czech 🇨🇿 Vinárna or Hungarian 🇭🇺 Borozó, working class wine-focused pubs, are formats often reserved for the owner, their families and friends these days. These are dying out fast as they are family-run, independent but have no future because they have fallen out of fashion with the younger generation. Hopefully there is time to turn that around, but it seems unlikely. Worth exploring.
Hungary 🇭🇺 also offers a funny term: “késdobáló”, or “knife-thrower”, referring to rough-and-ready pubs which descend into debauchery and beyond.
If you are interested in the many other terms for pubs and bars in Europe why not browse our Glossary?
This month, EBG travelled to 5 Czech 🇨🇿 towns off the normal tourist route: Strakonice, Pisek, Tábor, Pelhřimov and Humpolec.
What we found was concerning considering Czechia is renowned for being the only Slavic nation with a true pub culture.
Culture can’t be taken for granted. It must be nurtured. It relies upon stakeholders acting with a duty of care and civic mindedness, but also a system that empowers such people to make a difference. It cannot be left to the whims of the market.
This is far from unanimously accepted though.
There are two main schools of thought on this topic:
1. The economy is an external force we are all subject to and must obey, the conditions are beyond the power of individuals or small businesses to combat and must simply be accepted along with prevailing trends. To fight against those or innovate is futile.
2. Culture derives from innovation and human impulse, hence why it survived and thrived in harsher conditions in the past. The conditions where culture flourishes depend on the actions of individuals and willingness to bring something new into being.
That may be diving quite deep, so let’s come up for air a moment and discuss our experiences from the Czech provinces.
Strakonice🇨🇿
A town with a large brewery and other small breweries nearby, along with an excellent pub, Forbes. However, signs of fraying at the edges are apparent, with the nightlife hub Port Arthur bar gone and an absence of a focal point or cluster that would create healthy nightlife. The main brewery does not appear interested in helping, with its operations being lunch diners rather than venues to hang out and socialise.
We heard from the brewer at Pivovar Čejetice, (a lovely little operation a 5 minute train ride out of town) that Forbes was due to close due to a leasehold dispute, a Europe-wide issue that endangers successful, thriving businesses. When lost, a pub that is every bit as good as Prague’s offerings, then it is not an exaggeration to call that a disaster for the culture of a town like Strakonice.
Písek🇨🇿
Relics like Hostinec U Jiřího z Poděbrad are marvellous to find in the year 2024, but beyond the enjoyment of discovering a true survivor, the grim fact is that once the elderly tapsters retire and/or the customers die out, there is no future without the next generation to follow. They urgently need to address this by pulling in new blood, but there is no sign of any desire, foresight, etc to do this.
Yes, that is a 0.5l beer in Czechia for 34kc in the year 2024.
In England a phrase regarding the NHS has become famous: “…it will exist so long there’s folk with the faith left to fight for it.” The recognition of pubs as being of value, but also the subset of reasons they are of value is so important, but it feels like a portion the stakeholders do not appreciate their power; instead the decline is seen as an inevitable external factor, not something within their power to change.
Na Sadech is an example of a pub that must previously have been like the Hostinec above. It has modernised somewhat, although its former character is partly present. This presents a further dilemma. What is “modernising” is often simply sterilising – in Czechia’s case, taking the genius loci from old pubs to turn them into Croatia-style Caffe Bars. TV blaring, overbearing strip lighting, featureless décor and furnishings. In a few more chess moves Na Sadech will become just another formerly good pub that became anonymous.
Tábor🇨🇿
Tábor is blessed enough to have a range of bars from the gloriously down and dirty U Lva, to a top end craft beer bar, Výčep, with a whisky bar and competent, if unexciting chain pubs. A reasonable offering for a small town. However, we heard when meeting a friend that U Lva’s freeholder is unsatisfied with the money the business makes.
Bear in mind this near legendary pub has been operating almost since the fall of the Iron Curtain, run deliberately democratically to attract a young audience. Yet only now are its takings insufficient enough to agitate their owner? If you have ever been in this great place, you will appreciate the invaluable social service it provides. Young mixes with old with young, rich with poor, it is the leveller you read about when you were getting into Czech pubs. Social bonding which is so crucial to knitting society together and forging mutual respect is happening more fervently at what is a den of iniquity than any other form of pub in the town.
U Lva is special but in a way a certain kind of middle-aged, middle-class decision maker appears not to understand. It is not a charity but who is to say what would replace it would be more lucrative?
How can somewhere like this fold?
Pelhřimov🇨🇿
Poutník brewery is one of my favourites. An unflashy regional brewer that creates superb traditional pale lager and nothing else, gloriously myopic, but self-assured. The site overshadows the town centre with its looming chimney stacks. Historic working premises and something for the region to be proud of. But where is the action to create venues in their home town for their beer?
The lack of joined-up thinking borders on astonishing. It is odd to say that a town with a traditional brewery in the very centre has nearly no pubs, at least none that are social-focused rather than restaurants. A sorry state of affairs.
Where is the joint responsibility here? Why does the town council and the brewery fail to convene to improve this situation? As you’ll see from the header image, the town centre of Pelhřimov is stunningly beautiful and some Poutník pubs and venues for a younger audience to hangout would enhance the centre.
Humpolec🇨🇿
Home of Bernard brewery, a regional family brewery whose English equivalent would be something like Timothy Taylor’s. Independent but verging on corporate in size. These are bigger hitters who could transform the town. Centrally located, the smell of brewing fills the air and you cannot fail to spot the branding as you approach the town centre. It is only right that pubs should spring forth from this well. It already dominates Humpolec so surely Humpolec’s prosperity, attitude, direction is within their sphere of influence?
Yet, the situation in the town is also unsatisfactory.
Na Mlýnku is a good start, a popular modern venue with a deliberate attempt to remain casual and pubby while rebooting the Hospoda format for the 2020s, but the sheer absence of pubs elsewhere in town is alarming.
There is no lack of custom, in fact all the select few pubs we passed were busy, but it seems obvious that it would not take much at all for the scene to disappear. A sense of proactivity to address this precarious situation seems lacking.
The Threat
This cannot be left to drift. With the current issues with freeholders, the passing of time with elderly owners retiring there is already enough of a threat to pubs without the various other issues.
It must be noted that the industry is reeling from the shocks during Covid, high inflation for critical costs such as energy, distribution and raw materials for brewers and the withdrawal of Covid era tax support, which combined has sent beer costs spiralling around 10%+ per year. If you’ve had a 10% wage increase this year we’re pleased for you, but most haven’t. This is going to affect the amount customers are willing to spend and how often they go out.
This is perilous terrain and the sizable regional brewers – Strakonice, Poutník, Bernard, must step up and serve their towns – not just with eateries but by supporting or even running more social venues where beer is drunk in volume, not just a pilsner to accompany a meal. These are big players who export high volumes across Europe and have fingers in many pies. To suggest they can’t do this or wouldn’t benefit from it doesn’t make sense.
Town councils also must intervene and be more municipally minded. Culture is nurtured and just as a plant needs protection from the whims of the weather, so do pubs. A Czech town with a certain population, say, 10,000 should, if healthy, have approximately 1 brewery pub, 6 or so regular pubs, a few of which do hot meals, a dedicated live music venue and a couple of late bars. Potentially a craft brewery or modern beer specialists too. No-one is asking councils to fund pubs outright (although this does happen in the case of Obecní hospody) but to make sensible, timely interventions as and when circumstances arise.
There should also be care to ensure a skeleton of these are open on Sundays and Mondays. Why? Because the economy suffers, business suffers and people suffer from an inability to connect these elements. If these towns wish to have visitors and residents who participate and spend money then the towns need to actively function, including their nightlife and social scene, not simply shut down with a middle-finger salute to anyone passing by.
You would assume pub users would be the first in the vanguard here, however many pretend that the economy is an opaque entity like the monolith from Space Odyssey, something that is imposed upon you and can’t be understood, simply obeyed. That is a charter of decay, and decline. None of the successful entrepreneurs (who many of the disciples of this attitude deify) in human history have ever thought like that.
What is with the odd duality here? A budding entrepreneur is never lectured to comply with the market – they are encouraged to innovate. It is only apparently the general public, whose disquiet must be quelled and accept what is imposed on them.
The threat, which is all too apparent, is that the tradition of pub culture dies out in the very heartlands where it thrived. Not because people just decided to stay at home, but because the stakeholders failed to water the plants, failed to be bold, failed to live up to their obligations and snuffed it all out.
It is apparent that if only a few things go awry these towns will become pub deserts.
– Jack Anderton, European Bar Guide Editor-in-chief (Head Honcho)
Evenings in Olomouc are a tough time to get seated. Wherever you turn, each hostinec, hospoda, pajzl, minipivovar or výčep seems to be full. It is no exception when it comes to U Kuděje. Yet, frustrating though that is, there is all justification to persevere as you are searching for a drink in one of the best pubs in the city, if not in the whole country.
At first appearances Hospůdka U Kuděje may seem unremarkable. A Czech pub in a half-step basement of a very Czech city building? – seen plenty of those before. Wooden furniture from the Austria-Hungary era, with traditional ruralist décor? A well-trodden choice, too but the true quality of U Kuděje is the combination of a number of smaller things contributing to a greater whole, known as genius loci, or spirit of a place. Which we will now come to.
U Kuděje is not based slap bang in the centre (it could potentially lose a fraction of its charm if it were) but a short walk west on the fringes between Olomouc’s old town and a residential neighbourhood west of Čechovy sady.
U Kuděje is named after the writer Zdenek Kuděj, the closest and perhaps long-suffering friend of Jaroslav Hašek, who were both part of an anarchist/bohemian literary scene in the early 20th century, so is a fitting tribute to someone who spent huge amounts of time in pubs. You will find theirs and others’ works available to read (in Czech, of course) within the pub. Here is a short explanation of the pub and connection to the writer: http://www.memorialmatejekudeje.cz/?cat=14
Drop down a short set of stairs outside to the basement level and enter, where the bar area greets you immediately, with a list of beers attached above the bar. The place feels warm and bunker-like and you will almost certainly find people sat at stools around the bar, and a cast of regulars sat on tables to your right. To your left is a small lounge area with people deep in conversation and set into the ritual of the place itself.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
The pub has the atmosphere you’d expect from a neighbourhood dive and you’ll quickly notice from the interactions there are folk sat around who know each other well. This in my opinion is the core of the pub’s appeal, the warmth and simplicity of a social scene that people invariably seek out when given the choice.
A busy pub full of locals can be intimidating at first, and if you can’t see anywhere to sit you may be forced to hang at the bar (also awkward if there is no leaning room). Take a full look into the pub and if there is a spare seat ask “je tu volny”, and hopefully someone will yield. If you arrive as a group in the evening without a reservation, then all I can say is: Good luck. Yep, unfortunately Czechia does not do first-come-first served in pubs and will reserve tables for loyal locals at the expense of fly-by-night tourists and turf you out of your seat when the time comes.
U Kuděje’s big thing – atmosphere aside – is a focus on regional Czech beer, which is very good news for any fans of unfiltered and/or unpasteurised lagers (me). Offering 5 or so on tap at any one time, this is a sensible number that helps ensure freshness, and a little rotation for new and recurring brands. The beers are also served on porcelain plates built with recesses to collect spillage – this is very old fashioned but seems to be making a comeback of late.
They may try to suggest that these beers are good for your health but quite frankly, who cares? If it makes you feel better then yes, yeast can in theory help repopulate your stomach with good bacteria. However if you need it repopulating because of an excess of beer the previous night then that rather negates the point, doesn’t it? Prices are reasonable, perhaps on the high side for Olomouc, which isn’t a problem given Olomouc is an extremely affordable city.
The pub snacks at U Kuděje are typical for Czech pubs – expect the usual cheese, ham, pickles but keep a look out for Moravian cheese if that’s your thing, as that’s quite the regional speciality.
Lastly, take a look at the opening hours – few places open later on a Saturday than they do during the week, but U Kuděje is one of them This place is does a short 5 hours service on weekends, and opens at 3 during the week. This makes it doubly difficult to try and get into.
Although U Kuděje may be a tough nut to crack as an outsider, I personally couldn’t think of too many pubs on my travels I’d prefer to make the effort to ingratiate myself in. You’ll find the true atmosphere and camaraderie of a mixed crowd partaking in a time-honoured tradition, rate authenticity, not to mention enjoying some of the freshest, well-kept and well-poured lager available.
Have you been? Any comments or suggestions? We’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch, particularly if any of the above requires amending.
Even those of us committed to pub-going find it daunting (though enjoyable) to explore Prague’s enormous pub scene. Tearing oneself away from the high quality known favourites such as U Hrocha or U Cerneho Vola is difficult enough in itself; given a holiday may last only a few days, you could be forgiven for sticking to the known favourites.
However, several visits in, I am starting to chip away at the available drinking holes the city and can strongly recommend doing so for the many gems that exist outside of the most touristic areas.
However, Jelinkova Plzenska Pivnice or ‘U Jelinku’ as it is more colloquially known, was a bit of a blot on my copybook, a core old town pub I had known about since 2007 recommended in Prague Pubs as being an authentic Pilsner Urquell pub in the heart of the old town, but never visited.
By rights I ought to have paid a visit in the early days, but for one reason or another, things got in the way. This is partly down to the unconventional opening hours, quirkily being open only until 6pm on a Saturday and being closed altogether on a Sunday! Though inconvenient, it gives you a flavour already that this is a pub doing whatever it wants, to hell with the consequences.
Finally, after multiple occasions I ensured I paid a visit in December last year. Firstly, as with all the best Pilsner Urquell pubs, it is virtually impossible to leave after a single pint, the devil on your shoulder always telling you to go for one more, combined with the Czech habit of inviting you to have another the moment they spy you getting to the end of your glass.
Jelinkuis a tiny pub and so when you visit don’t be surprised to find standing room only, if that. As you walk in you’ll find a square wood-panelled bar area and walls sparsely decorated with some classic Pilsner Urquell ephemera from decades past. There is an old fashioned open bar area with a sink where the tapster Bohumil Kundrt does his work.
It’s all about having a beer na stojaka, ‘on the stand’, so you greet the tapster, order the inevitable number of beers required, pay straight up (unusual for a Czech pub) and take your beer for a lean with your mates. Simplicity defined.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
It seems to be a family operation, and the main tapster’s appearance is appropriately a caricature of a pre-war central European maestro, a rotund, smartly-dressed fellow of borderline retirement age with white hair and a majestic and comically-curled moustache, helping transport you back in time to the good old days of Bohemia, which is very much where this pub would rather exist.
The site has been a pub since 1918, with the Pilsner Urquell contract drawn up 8 years later, remaining ever since.
One of the recurring features of these throwback places is treating tourists with a tolerance rather than an open arms embrace. If you can stand some-good natured jesting and accept you are in the domain of the tapster and his stamgasty, who are perched by the bar having a chat and a joke, you’re assured of a good time nevertheless.
Many of the regulars use their visit for conversation, so you may find one or two chirping up in English to get a conversation going. This is one of the hallmarks of a great pub and it is this unique environment, almost forcing people together at the bar area to drink and talk which acts as the ice-breaker, so vital for a sole travellers in a foreign country.
The Pilsner Urquell is as good as you’ll find it anywhere, and you may find the format of standing results in you drinking more of the stuff than usual – that and the nerves, I guess. At 46 crowns for a pint, it’s on the high side of pubs still catering for locals rather than tourists, but if I told you that equates to £1.50 a pint I’m sure you won’t quibble! Don’t even bother asking what else is on to drink, as there isn’t anything. You’re on Pilsner or spirits – that’s it.
There is a room around the back which receives table service (it will either be the rakishly thin lady or the more comely lady of the house who is in attendance). Access to these tables can depend on reservations and at a loss of that, good luck. Though I haven’t yet had the pleasure, it looks a truly pleasant place to be with seating facing in around the room creating that feel of conviviality you’re searching for when you try pubs like this. The format is simple and effective. Why do so many other places make genius loci seem like alchemy?
Though Prague is currently experiencing a wave in characterless craft beer bars, and has an almost bottomless trunk full of cheap but featureless macro-brewery branded drinking holes, you can’t walk far before a true pub hoves into view. The real job, as I’ve been finding, is being able to sort the wheat from the chaff, and knowing when is the best time to be there.
Jelinkova deserves a high score because it is so different from the usual, it rewards perseverance and the best time to be there is simple: when it’s open. If you’re up for a good time, not a long time, the pub is right up there as the best in the city.
Linecká 46, Plešivec, 381 01 Český Krumlov, Czechia
Quality and/or choice of drinks –7/10
Style and Decor – 7/10
Character, Atmosphere and/or Local Life – 9/10
Amenities, Events & Community – 6/10
Value for Money – 9/10
The Pub-Going Factor – 8/10
When you have a pub with so little online presence it barely registers on Google, the apparent repository of all the world’s knowledge, you already get an indication of the nature of the venue.
Likely a locals drinking hole, likely without such fripperies as wi-fi connections, fresh air, clean toilets, likely with the sort of limited amenities and word-of-mouth presence locally that make having any such online presence pointless. Situate it in a country like Czechia, not exactly fussed about airs and graces, and a clear picture starts to form of a backwater boozer.
Nestled in a side-street of the amazing medieval town Cesky Krumlov, Rock Pub Gorila (to give the full title) , provides the kind of underground pub experience Google probably thought it had eradicated through the many million 4 star reviews gathered of sterile chain pubs. If I and a few friends visited Gorila this weekend coming and reported back I could probably triple the online coverage single-handedly. It feels almost perverse to write about it now, in fact.
If you can wrench your eyes away from the spectacular scenery (especially the river and castle tower ahead) look out for the dinky Gorila sign on black awning with a funky yellow Gorila, and a Kozel emblem next to it. Kozel just about sums the place up, the everyman’s go to drink in Czechia.
I bet you can partly imagine what it’s like before I even get started, but yes, expect smoking (we’ll see whether that’s remained the case since the ban), quality rock music of various eras, basement level prices for beer, and a committed throng of regulars hanging around in cliques, some of whom belong to a slightly friendlier Czech equivalent to the biker fraternity but these guys don’t own the place.
The decoration is modest rather than being outstanding but involves a succession of framed photos of classic rock and memorabilia giving the place a clear, if not exactly original identity. I’m also pleased to report there are actually some comfortable seats, something which will be a blessed relief after the generally not upholstered hardwood bench and chairs in most Czech pubs which must produce quite some discomfort for piles-sufferers out there. It’s scruffy around the edges and dog-eared, which is good because it feels lived-in, a bit like a sixth form common room. I still think that’s a decent thing for a pub.
Gorila has a strong community feel. Even though the centre of Cesky Krumlov is fairly touristy the locals in the surrounding areas descend into the beautiful city centre for some cheap drinking and social time – which by the way extends long into the night – don’t worry about being kicked out early here. Most tourists appear to steer well clear – unsurprising because Czech pubs like this really do not scream ‘come on in’ and it takes a degree of gumption to enter on your own, as I should know, because I did it.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
You’ll certainly encounter some lively characters, be they raucous alternative types or simply drunken buffoons, but the range of patrons gives away that the bar is generally a jovial place. If you go looking for trouble you’ll probably find it, but if you keep yourself to yourself, or tag along with the youngsters having a laugh and a joke, you’ll have a great time.
It sort of reminded me of a few places I used to visit in my home town growing up – full of all kinds of people, unpretentious and lively, a community of people who didn’t necessarily all like each other but were determined to get out on the piss nevertheless.
Don’t bother even going here if you are intolerant to bad smells or spooked by odd characters. I wouldn’t imagine speaking English would do you too many favours either. Do go if you’re into finding out where the locals are drinking and wanting to sample a bit of their lives – in this case raw and unpretentious, a smidgen edgy but friendly enough.
As is the growing trend, there are more than a couple of beer options on offer here, and you’ll tend to find 2 resident beers with another 2 on rotation. Although Pilsner Urquell, Kozel and Gambrinus are predictable appearances look out for lesser lights like Svijany and Bakalar too – even an unvarnished boozer like this is joining in the fun.
Drinking here remains joyously inexpensive, not pushing much above 28 crowns for a normal beer, and of course that’s why people are here. An honest price for an honest place.
Cesky Krumlov doesn’t have the most obvious pub scene in the centre of town (though there are some spots such as Traveller’s Pub and some hospoda/pivnice type places for food and a beer, which makes Gorila the number 1 choice in town for an old fashion drop in for a pint with your mates, and it does a damn good job of it.
