‘I do,’ said Anna, smiling, charmed by his obvious passion.
Across the room she saw the blonde girl hand her phone to Leo. She almost laughed out loud. Three days in Prague and he was already collecting phone numbers.
‘Of course, there is so much more to the city than beer. We have much art and culture, and of course the newest installation by the famous Czech artist David Cerný,The Spitfire Butterflies.’ Jakub pulled a comical face. ‘They are giant butterflies made from Spitfire planes. I’m not sure my father the pilot would have approved, but I’m most intrigued.’ He glanced over at the younger brewer. ‘I’m not so set in my ways I can’t enjoy something new.’
‘They sound fascinating.’ Anna smiled at him, genuinely intrigued. ‘They must be huge.’
‘I believe they are.’ He looked down at his watch and gave her a shy but mischievous smile. ‘If you’d like we could make a detour via the Quadrio shopping centre to see them on our way to the brewery. It’s quite a big detour really but we can also see Kafka’s rotating head on another installation by Cerný.’
Charmed by this unexpected playfulness peeking out from his serious persona, she nodded. ‘That sounds like a great idea, I’ve heard about Kafka’s head and seen pictures. I’d love to see that.’
‘Excellent. Shall we go?’ He gestured for her to lead the way.
Some of the stress that was holding her stomach in its tight grip eased. Jakub was a sweetie and she had a feeling they were going to get along just fine. In fact she felt that of the two placements, she’d definitely got the better end of the deal.
ChapterFour
‘Night, Leo.’ Veronika waved at him from behind her desk as he left after his third day at the Crystal brewery. She was the assistant here, although he’d say she took her duties rather lightly; her mobile phone and her social life seemed to take up most of her attention. He didn’t mind as she’d been very generous offering to take him out.
‘Bye,’ he replied.
‘And thank you again for last night,’ she said, lowering her voice, peering up at him from beneath her eyelashes. He grinned at her. They’d had fun. She’d flirted, he’d flirted, but nothing more.
‘Thanks for showing me round,’ he said. ‘That was a nice bar. And I loved the beer.’
‘We should do it again. I know lots of great places to drink in Prague.’ She flashed him a bright, hopeful smile. ‘How about tomorrow after work?’
‘Can’t do tomorrow but maybe next week.’ Natálie, the girl he’d met at the induction day, had sent him a text offering to take him to Lod Pivovar, a floating brewery on the Vltava, the following evening, and he’d already accepted.
‘Leo!’ Karel shouted from the mezzanine floor above. ‘Wait up, I’ll walk out with you.’
Leo watched as Karel ran lightly down the metal steps. His desk on the mezzanine was surrounded by the stainless-steel pipes and tanks of the brewery. His new boss ran a mile a minute, incapable of sitting still or being quiet. Karel had a habit of propelling himself across the floor between his desk and the large touch screen that managed the computerised production process. He was very proud of the fact that he could operate elements of the production from his mobile phone.
As they walked down the cobbled streets, Karel apologised for not spending much time with Leo so far. ‘Sorry it’s a bit crazy at the moment. I’m sales manager and marketing director, as well as head brewer. I hope the guys have been looking after you.’
‘Yes,’ said Leo. ‘I’m enjoying getting my hands dirty.’ That morning, he’d been loading the mash ton with malted barley grains, inhaling the familiar scent before the mashing began.
‘That’s good, although I do want you to do more. We need to discuss some ideas for the beer you’re going to make. When you win it’s going to give us a lot of publicity. This is the first year of the placement scheme, so lots of people are interested.’
‘Don’t you meanifwe win?’ Leo laughed at Karel’s overconfidence. ‘It’s a competition, remember.’
Karel made a rude hand gesture and grinned back at him. ‘It’s Jakub Šilhov. There’s nothing to worry about with that old man. He wouldn’t know how to come up with a new recipe for beer if someone threatened to take his dumplings away. He only knows one way to make beer. Here we can do anything we want. Push boundaries. Experiment. Life does not stand still and neither should beer.
We can buy in some different hop varieties. Jakub insists on using the original Saaz hops and a triple decoction. I mean, what a performance. I’m more inclined to infusion but you can play around..’
‘Thanks,’ said Leo. He had no strong views either way, but decoction, where a portion of the mash was separated and heated, was time-consuming and affected the length of production. An infusion was much simpler.
‘And a lot of it is down to marketing. It’s all very well saying you’ve been making the same beer for two hundred years but … tastes change. People get bored of the same old, same old.’
Leo nodded. ‘I can’t wait to get started.’
‘Nor me, man.’ Karel grinned at him. ‘Brewing is in my blood, even if it was taken away from me.’
‘Taken away?’
‘Yeah.’ Karel’s mouth twisted. ‘My family’s brewery was taken into state ownership during communism. When the communists were ousted, my father couldn’t prove ownership, but his brother could and kept the whole lot.’
‘That’s tough.’
