The Czech Republic is famous for beer. We have a long tradition in brewing. This modern history began with František Ondřej Poupě. He started a small beer revolution. František prefered brewing beer made from barley and introduced the thermometer to brewing (they used to test the temperature with their elbow before technology improved).
Pivovar means brewery
These days we have many types of beer. You can drink světlé pivo, tmavé or černé pivo, polotmavé pivo, pšeničné pivo and others. Everybody knows huge breweries like Plzeňský prazdroj, Staropramen, Budějovický Budvar. The Czechs like small breweries as well. In my hometown Kroměříž we have lovely beer Černý Orel, in Brno is famous Pegas.
Jedenáctku nebo dvanáctku?
When you go to the pub and want to order, it isn’t so easy to understand. Very often the waiter asks: “Chcete jedenáctku nebo dvanáctku?” Even you already know the basic phrases the word “jedenáctku” you haven’t heard. But there is no need to panic or be frightened. Let’s have a look and study typical dialog in a pub with those special expressions!
The first important word you should know is pivo. Waiter we say in Czech číšník (Č). And how do we call waitress? She is číšnice or servírka. Host is a tricky word. In English the meaning is totally different. In Czech is host (H) a guest, visitor.
Č: Dobrý den!
H: Dobrý den!
Č: Co si dáte?
H: Dám si jedno pivo, prosím.
Č: Jedenáctku Krušovice nebo dvanáctku Dalešice?
H: Jedenáctku.
Č: Ještě něco?
H: Ještě jedno pivo, prosím.
H: Zaplatím, prosím!
Č: Třicet dva korun.
H: Čtyřicet.
Č: Děkuji, na shledanou.
H: Na shledanou.
Co si dáte?
„Co si dáte?“ means what will you have. The waiter can ask you „Co si přejete?“ as well. It means „What do you wish?“.
Jedenáctku Krušovice nebo dvanáctku Dalešice?
Jedenáct means eleven and dvanáct means twelve. But it is not an alcohol content. It is a sugar content in a malt. It’s true, that more degrees the beer has more stronger is. Krušovice and Dalešice is than the brand, the brewery name.
Ještě jedno pivo, prosím.
It’s good to know at this point the word krát. When you want to order more than one beer, you can simply use the normal number plus the word krát which means times. So we can say „Dvakrát pivo, prosím. Desetkrát pivo, prosím.“ The phrase „Ještě něco?“ means „Anything else?“, literally it’s „More something?“. You can hear as well „Máte všechno?“ – „Do you have everything?“
