What have Czech Lokál pubs given to the beer world?
Good beer and honest cooking
We serve beer that's fresh, right to the last sip, and real home cooking. Lokál is a place where good beer and honest food matter.
First of all, the folks at Lokál revived classic Czech terms like "hladinka" and "šnyt" that had been disappearing from pubs. After all, in 1936 even Karel Čapek wrote a poem for Lidové noviny called The endangered šnyt, all about the disappearance of šnyt from Czech pubs. With the opening of Lokál, both terms returned, at least to the Prague beer scene.
Beer-clean glass. It's a term and a rule that every honest beer drinker carries in his soul. Beer-clean glass refers to a perfectly washed, wet and cold pint. In order to guarantee this, even in a packed bar, a few weeks after the opening of the first Lokál a chilled flow-through pint tub was developed by the then bartender Lukáš Svoboda, together with Plzeňský Prazdroj.
A short lead is a good thing when it comes to beer! For good beer to flow into the glass, it must take the shortest possible route. In new generation taps, the beer is chilled all the way to the tap. And the tap has built-in temperature sensors to help the tappers as they work.
Because pubs can be busy, Lokál has dusted off the position of the beer carry, who serves the beer, giving the waiters and waitresses a helping hand. Originally, it was the man who walked around the pub and put the beer on the table without the guest ordering another. Such a tradition is still practiced today, for example at the Golden Tiger. If you've had enough, just put a coaster over your pint.
Without sanitation, the beer doesn't flow. Certainly not as well as it does in the regularly cleaned pipes and taps at Lokál. Moreover, the head bartenders of each of the establishments have undergone special training and can sanitise everything themselves. Sanitation means the mechanical cleaning of the drink routes, and it's a precise technological procedure. Tank beer, i.e. unpasteurised beer, has to be sanitised every week, while cask beer only needs to be sanitised once every two weeks. However, in the case of unfiltered or non-alcoholic beer, sanitisation is also necessary on a weekly basis. Since Lokál has all these beers on tap, sanitation takes place every seven days.
Did we mention the skilled tappers? There are dozens of them working across Lokál locations! Anyone who wants to stand behind the tap has to undergo three months of tap training, culminating in an exam. If you aspire to higher standards, a master bartender's licence is on offer. To get one, you have to train a colleague and go on an overseas placement. Lokál has birthed legends such as František Šťástka, today the general manager of Lokál U Bílé Kuželky, who won the world championship in tapping, and the winner of the Czech branch of the Master Bartender competition, Tomáš Krčmář.
To find out who is truly the most skilled bartender, staff from across Ambiente compete in the The Golden Tap competition. In 2022, the winner was Tereza Pospíšilová, the general manager of Pult, and last year Pavel Láf from U Zavadilů. Maybe one day this competition will grow beyond our gastronomic group.
"Even though hundreds to thousands of litres are tapped every day, it can still be done properly, pint by pint," says Lucka Janečková, motivating her colleagues. Clean glassware, cold beer and a single draught pour are among the principles she instils in her younger colleagues.
In addition to the new generation of taps, another innovation was born in Lokál — the Freedom tap, developed by master tapper Lukáš Svoboda together with LUKR. At first glance (and a bit from the inside), the Freedom is similar to the classic Baroque tap, but it is manipulated from top to bottom. You can see it in action at the Dva Kohouti brewery or the Pult beer bar.
If it weren't for the Lokál, these two establishments might not have been created. Dva Kohouti and Pult focus on specialty beers, but also lagers. While at Dva Kohouti they also brew their own specials, at Pult they help guests discover the beer world and offer a wide range of flavours from all over Europe.
Lukáš Svoboda's Tapping School also originated in Lokál in 2013, and from this course (which is still run by Lucka Janečková) and the activities associated with it, emerged the PIVO Institute. Lucka, Tomáš Krčmář and Pavel Bübel are masters of the field, and take care of the quality of beer in all Ambiente companies, train new colleagues and give beer a good name in the Czech Republic and abroad.
"Beer should taste good to the last sip," Lucie Janečková likes to stress. And to make sure that this is the case, the beer in Lokál is kept at a maximum temperature of 3,5 °C. Even a slow drinker will finish it before it gets warm (that is, if they drink it within half an hour!).
Lokál beer cards are part of our pub culture, and have a place on the table in all pubs. You might have noticed that they show only nine beers drawn in a row, not ten. That's because it's the nine pints lined up side by side that make up a so-called metre of beer. You can get one for your friends, if you fancy.
Beer has its humour, and Lokál's got a lot of it. And not just on the beer mats.
Above all, Lokál has given the beer world a new, holistic perspective on the care of our national drink. And that's why the same care that baristas give to coffee and sommeliers to wine is now being given by bartenders across the board to their beloved beers on tap. Thank you, Lokál!
