Got Mlíko? Why You Should Try a Glass Full of Wet Beer Foam
Maybe you’ve seen them bubbling up on your Instagram feed, those beer glasses full of milky white foam. Perhaps you’ve asked yourself, “But, where’s the beer?” Or, “What on earth is a ‘milktube?’” Here’s everything you need to know about the mlíko pour, and why it should be the first thing you order when you can find it. “Mlíko means ‘milk’ in Czech,” says Pilsner Urquell senior trade brewmaster Kamil Růžek. “It’s named because it’s a glass filled with wet beer foam, with a very small bit of beer at the bottom, so it really does look just like a glass of creamy milk.” Růžek calls the mlíko “certainly the most extreme” of three classic Czech beer pours, which include the hladinka and the šnyt. The hladinka is about 75 percent beer, 25 percent foam; the šnyt is a little more foam than beer. “For the perfect mlíko, the tap is opened only slightly, creating a beer foam to fill the glass with,” says Růžek. A small amount of the foam settles to become beer but otherwise, it’s a nice, creamy, dense pour.” This also requires reversing what many see as the proper pouring order, explains Jen Blair, an advanced cicerone, National...