Budweiser Budvar / Czechvar

Two beers share the name Budweiser; this is the Czech one. Budweiser Budvar — sold as Czechvar in North America — is a golden lager from České Budějovice, the town Germans historically called Budweis, which is exactly where the trouble started.

When the brewery opened in 1895, 'Budweiser' simply meant beer from Budweis, the way pilsner meant beer from Pilsen. But an American brewer had already adopted the name for its own lager, and the two companies have contested trademarks around the world for over a century — which is why the same Czech beer wears different labels depending on where you buy it.

Budvar remains something genuinely rare: a national brewery still owned by the Czech state, never sold to a global group even as nearly every famous neighbor was, still making its lager the patient way with long, cold maturation. At home, that status is a point of quiet pride — the Budweiser that stayed in Budweis.

Full gold with a fine white head. The malt leans bready and lightly honeyed, the Saaz hops add a gentle spicy-herbal note rather than a bitter punch, and it finishes soft and rounded — noticeably mellower than its pilsner cousins. A lager built for the second and third glass.