Kozel - Possibly changed by the fat cats (Velkopopovicky Kozel)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Velkopopovicky Kozel
Date:	11/08/08 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A bitter sweet beerphony

Disadvantages: Something strange added to it in my book

Hmm the photo of the beer is actually the dark version (cerny) which I haven't tried, I've tucked in to a few of the light pale ones though (Svetle). For some reason I've always bought Kozel in Slovakia, not knowing that it's actually Czech. After a bit of research, it turns out that it's from Velké Popovice to the south west of Brno but is allowed to be brewed in Slovakia, Russia, Hungary and Israel.

Kozel is best in bottle or on the pump, the taste of Czech beer in general doesn't seem to go well with cans and this one is no exception. Kozel is ok, I'm not wild about it though. Using old fashioned lettering, it resembles a bit of tradition and although it only goes back to 1874, it's not exactly a New Kid on the Eastern Block. Golden cans or golden labeled beer resembles this lager.

Taste wise it's ok, grassy and hoppy but the further down the bottle/glass/can you get, the more a weird taste comes in, a bit of artificialness or chemicals, this I presume has something to do with it being bought by SabMiller in recent years. I say this because I very much doubt that 19th century Czech brewers thought "let's add some rank chemicals and destroy age-long tradition" and the ingredients of beers Europe wide have changed of late with various ingredients being introduced to prolong it's shelf life, allow it to be exported and because the EU rulemakers basically think they are it and create beauracratical laws having found a reason to destroy tradition and neutralise or change the taste or brewing procedure. This always makes me fuming, who is some prat sat in Luxembourg to tell the Czechs, Germans, Brits, Poles, Romanians etc what to do with their product to make it saleable.

Bar the weird added taste, the beer is pleasant with a nice equilibrium between bitter and sweetness.

Summary: Sod the new ingredients!