Today we celebrate the return of “Havel Forever!,” a pale Czech-style lager brewed in tribute to the late, great Václav Havel. With all the German-inspired beer we brew at Otherlands it can be easy to forget just how much we adore about Czech beer: its elegance, its simplicity, and most of all, its superb sense of balance.

“Havel Forever!” is our attempt to capture and celebrate those elements. Brewed with a traditional triple decoction mash and hopped almost exclusively with whole flower Saaz hops, the goal is a balance between body, hop flavor, malt sweetness, and a delicate yet pronounced bitterness. “Havel Forever!” is an 11° Pilsner coming in at a modest 4.5% ABV. Compared with our 10° Pils, “Dzialka Pivo” (which is also triple decocted and 100% Saaz hopped) Havel has a softer bitterness, a more restrained malt character, and a more well rounded balance.

“Havel Forever!” is named in tribute of Václav Havel: a playwright, political dissident, writer, first president of post communist Czechoslovakia, and, most importantly, a former brewery cellar employee. We hope it pairs well with principled dissent and a life lived in truth.