If you’re looking to go out for a beer or so this week but you don’t feel like hitting the pub circuit, or you’d like to start out your night doing something a little different, the Autumn Beer Tasting fest right between the Panorama hotel and the Pankrác shopping center is a solid choice.
The word festival doesn’t always have the best connotations for me – it usually means cold and outside with expensive bad food and hordes of frustrated tourists getting ripped off for “traditional” merchandise. But no, no – this little fest is rather like a small beer garden found it’s way under a tent and added a couple more types of beer to the menu and some live music.
There are 10 types of Czech beer served by extremely friendly young ladies in semi-traditional outfits, and a menu with an interesting assortment of semi-traditional Czech food, like bread with lard and crackling, pickled brie, sausage, grilled beans, beef goulash with bacon dumplings and roast pork knuckle and roast goose – or you can just go for a nice plate of french fries, my own preferred pairing with beer.
The beer and food is priced in traditional Czech money, which translates into 80 Kč for a large beer, 40 Kč for a small. Food ranges between 40 and 80 Kč.
The band set-up is nice – it’s on a lifted stage with good sound, with a little area to dance right in front of the stage. The band when I was there was a rather impressive semi-rock Czech band, but this Friday and Saturday night, according to the head server, there will be an English rock band.
If you’re looking for more of a quiet beer with a friend, the people don’t really start coming until later on in the evening – but once the music starts Friday and Saturday, they’re expecting a good crowd, I’m told. There weren’t loads of people when I went, but it was comfortably full with tables of friends tipping glasses and even some families (it was early still).
The festival starts at noon and ends at midnight every day this week – Saturday is the last day. Music starts at 6 p.m. and goes until around 11 p.m. If you go, don’t get turned off by the outside appearance of the tent – no doubt, it looks a little drab and damp from the outside (I almost turned around and went home), but truly when you get inside, it’s quite cozy. And there are giant sausage decorations hanging off the ceiling – can’t get any better than that.
To get there: take the metro, line C, to Pankrác station and walk towards the Pankrác Arkady visible from the station – the fest is in between the Arkady and Panorama Hotel.
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