In Czechoslovakia, Beer Is Cheaper Than Water

Throughout Medieval Europe, people didn't drink water unless they had no other option - there was too great a chance of it being polluted. Instead, they drank beer, wine, or mead with every meal. That's because the fermentation process kills off all harmful bacteria. And in at least one part of Europe, that practice still holds true - Czechoslovakia, where their national beer is the world's finest pilsner, Pilsner Urquell. If you have never had it before, I suggest you treat yourself.

Czechs apparently drink their Pilsner Urquell in such quantity that, based on economies of scale, it is cheaper to buy a Pilsner Urquell in Czechoslovakia than it is to get bottled water. This from Fox News:

In most restaurants and taverns across the Czech Republic, a mug of beer is, literally, cheaper than water. The country's health minister wants to change that as he tries to put Czechs on a lower-hops diet.

It won't be easy. Here in the birthplace of pilsner, beer is known as "liquid bread." Czechs drink an average of 37 gallons of the stuff per person per year, the highest per capita consumption in the world and more than double U.S. levels.

Pub patrons go through the sudsy amber liquid so fast that the nation's largest brewer, SABMiller unit Plzensky Prazdroj, maker of famed Pilsner Urquell, delivers beer with the kind of tank trucks used to haul gasoline, and pumps it into bars' storage vats. . . .

"Beer is like mother's milk for adults," said Marek Gollner, a 36-year-old computer programmer and regular customer at the U Zelenku pub in the Prague suburb of Zbraslav. . . .

"Beer is really widespread, with very deep roots…It's a well-anchored, important part of everyday life," said Jiri Vinopal, director of the Czech Academy of Sciences' Public Opinion Research Center. "It's always been that way. Since the Middle Ages people here have made beer their primary drink." . . .

For at least a thousand years, beer has been a staple in the Czech lands, and the country's native hops are renowned for being aromatic and bitter. St. Wenceslas, a martyred 10th-century Czech nobleman [and the subject of the Christmas carol, Good Kin Wenceslas], is a patron saint of brewing and malting, in addition to being the patron saint of the nation.

I doubt the Health Minister in Czechoslovakia is going to be winning any popularity contests. At any rate, Czechoslovakia is now on my bucket list of places to go before I leave this mortal coil. The thought of spending a week or so quaffing down dirt cheap Pilsner Urquell sounds like it would be well worth the effort.

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History Linkfest 9 August 2008

It's a walk through history in the links today, all below the fold:
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Murder, sex, adultery – the History News Network has it all in a post by Ronan Thomas asking whether Dr. Harvey Crippen, an American adulterer, actually poisoned his wife Cora in 1910 Britain. Dr. Crippen was executed for the crime.

"On August 6, 1945, the B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing an estimated 140,000 civilians. Three days later, the B-29 bomber Bock’s Car dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki, killing about 80,000 civilians." Mark Grimsley, a Professor of Military History, asks what if the Manhattan Project had failed and those bombs were never dropped?

At Walking the Berkshires, they are holding a small contest: name that castle


I have no idea which one this is. The flag it is flying is not British. It is tough to assess the terrain in black and white, but it appears to be near desert terrain, so its probably in the Middle East. I do not recognize the architectual style, but it does not look like one of the major Crusader styles. . . . hmmmm

Brits At Their Best walks us along the Heddon Valley and back in time to the black plague and the Peasents Revolt of 1381 – a revolt by men who refused to be turned back to serfdom and servitude.

Johnathan Jarret has an interesting post at A Corner Of 10th Century Europe on his meandering through some of the historical sites in and around Gairloch, Scotland.

At Religion in American History, John Fea blogs on how, at Williamsburg, the reenactments and displays accurately reflect the important role of religion in all aspects of life during the Colonial period. The wall between Church and State did not come into existence until the mid 20th century beyond a remark in a letter by Thomas Jefferson writ long after the First Amendment.

Westminster Wisdom has a very thoughtful post on the movie The Virgin Spring, a sort of retelling of the story of Job set in Scandanavia of a millenium ago.

The Irish Elk has another of his eclectic posts, Party Animals. I too wish there was still a Pat Moynihan fan club.

From Cardinal Wolsey, the remains of Shakespeare’s original theatre has been found.

Got Medieval tells us of some of the major events that occurred in the medieval world during the month of August, including:

. . . August 12th, 1099: The Battle of Ascalon, the final major battle of the First Crusade.

August 15th, 778: The Battle of Roncesvalles, where the shot heard round the world is made by Roland's brains exiting his ears.

August 15th, 1040: King Duncan I of Scotland killed by a fellow you may have heard of, goes by the name of Macbeth.
. . .
August 24th, 410: The Visigoths sack Rome and everyone has to change their desk calendars over from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages.

Do read them all.

At Rouge Classicalism, the remains of a vast, ancient city found in Northern Afghanistan. Speculation is that it might be where Alexander met Roxanne in about 327 B.C.

Mockery has the dual benefits of undercutting the object’s legitimacy and really t’ing them off. At Cliopatria, Ralph Luker has the Nazi reaction at finding themselves goose-stepping on the big screen to the Lambeth Walk, Oi..

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Interesting Posts From Around The Web - 17 March 2008

Art: The Muses Clio, Euterpe and Thalia, Eustach Le Sueur, 1655

Spc. Monica Lin Brown, 19 years old from Lake Jackson, Texas, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cav, has done something only a very few female soldiers in American history have ever done. She’s been awarded the Silver Star.

Of winter soldiers and real soldiers, two valuable posts from This Ain’t Hell.

From Consul at Arms quoting VDH on the suicidal canard of multiculturalism: "So ingrained is the notion among our elite that there are no absolute standards of ethics and morality, that we have lost the ability to apply abstract moral judgment without exception." And to see multiculturalism’s conjoined twin in all of its destructiveness, one need only turn to the surreal world of modern Britain.

Of course, things can get pretty damn surreal over here amongst our holier than thou lefties – like librarians refusing to notify authorities about visitors downloading kiddie porn over concern for their First Amendment rights.

Hillary’s imaginary achievements.

An Alpocricy commercial.

The question now is, what did Obama know and when did he know it? Remember Obama saying two days ago he had never heard Rev. Wright light into his racist vitriol at any time during his 20 years of attending Trinity United? Documentary evidence to the contrary is starting to roll in. And the video of Obama heaping praise on Rev. Wright has been scrubbed from YouTube, but not from the Jawa Report.

Barking Moonbats has a video that will tell you all you need to know about Obama. And now Obama’s church is trying to claim that Rev. Wright is the victim of character assassination. If you put the words "suicide by" in that description, I might buy it. And have you seen the Trinity United’s proposed revisions to the National Anthem?

The top 9 Obama campaign slogans suggested by Rev. Jerimah Wright. Heh. My favorite: Defeat racism; kill a cracker. And Rev. Wright will soon be bringing his social gospel into children’s programming. His initial work will be to tell the biblical story of "institutional racism in housing policy, when there was ‘no room at the inn.’"

Fact checking – it is not Reuters’ strongsuit. Far easier just to repeat the anti-gun accusations.

Free trade and Economics 101.

The Paris Book Fair this year is honoring several Israeli writers. Muslim authors have called for a boycott, and wholly unsurprisingly, there has been a bomb threat. For a psychological perspective on suicide bombers, go here. Meanwhile, some very bad things are happening to those who have filed official complaints against a radical Salafi Imam in Canada.

Time to break out the ham sandwiches and run the bath, we have a new guest at the Caribbean retreat. Heh. Meanwhile, what should we do with those guests guilty of plotting 9-11? Off with their heads? Nah, only the Saudis do that, such as for the crime of writing that other religions should not be considered "unbelievers." Apostacy.

So what exactly is the intersection of Islamic lawfare, Tibet’s riots and a Caribbean crimewave?

Whither the chainmail bikini?" And it’s the Medieval Tech Help Desk. Heh.

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