The first time you order a “milk pour” from Niteglow Beer Company in Bushwick, Brooklyn, you might think something has gone terribly wrong. The beer itself, a dark lager made with local grains, is fine. The problem, first-timers say, is its appearance: The glass is full of foam.
This is not a mistake. It’s a mlíko, one of several styles of beer pours originating in the Czech Republic, where lagers are intentionally dispensed with several inches of foam — and occasionally, an entire cupful.
“It adds a different layer of texture that most Americans aren’t used to in beer,” said Jonathan Ifergan, 39, an owner at Niteglow.
Generally speaking, beer foam is frowned upon in the United States, associated with the television show “Bar Rescue” and Saturday nights at Sigma Chi. But more American brewers have started to reconsider it. There’s a growing appreciation for centuries-old brewing techniques from the Czech Republic and the specialty taps that make these foam-forward beers possible. You can find a mlíko at Novare Res Bier Cafe in Portland, Maine; Little Lager in St. Louis; and Notch Brewing in Salem and Brighton, Mass., an early adopter.
“A lot of people are looking for ways to differentiate,” said Eric Larkin, 36, an owner of Cohesion Brewing Company in Denver, who was won over by creamy, low-alcohol-by-volume Czech lagers during his honeymoon in Prague. “Czech lagers aren’t all over the place. There’s still room to grow.”
The mlíko is one of three beer pours offered at Cohesion. The default style, known as hladinka, comes with about “three fingers” of foam, Mr. Larkin said, though many customers dial things up with a šnyt, two-thirds foam to one-third beer. Only true foam heads go for the mlíko pour, a full glass of foam whose name comes from a Czech slang word for “milk.”
“People are legitimately scared of foam,” he said. “We’re taught that foam is bad. We’re taught that it’s a waste of space in your glass.”
The mousse-like, fragrant foam on a Czech lager is “sort of like frosting on top of a cake,” said Evan Rail, a beer writer in Prague, and a mlíko “is all frosting” with a sweet, not bitter, taste.
It’s unclear when or why the over-the-top mlíko was created. A commonly cited theory is that it was invented in the 19th century as an alternative for women who didn’t like beer. “Those kinds of stories are often nonsensical P.R. talk,” Mr. Rail said. He believes the pour started within the last century as a joke between bartenders in Prague, where the beer taps enable them to spout a dense foam that takes several minutes to distill into liquid.
Unlike the lever handles popular in the United States, which function like an on-off switch, Czech faucets function like a dimmer: The nozzle can be opened gradually, perfect for extracting foam.
Until recently, purchasing a Czech faucet in the United States involved taking a gonzo approach similar to that of Mr. Larkin, who showed up on the doorstep of a Czech manufacturer and refused to leave.
Enter Lukr, a faucet manufacturer based in Pilsen, Czech Republic, that began selling its taps to American bars in 2015. The first year Jan Havránek, Lukr’s head of international sales, sold taps in the United States, he closed about a dozen sales. “It was mostly beer nerds,” he said. Those numbers have improved in the years since. The company now sells between 1,000 and 2,000 taps in the United States annually, he said.
The Lukr taps often end up in the hands of traditionalists, like Brienne Allan and Michael Fava, the owners of Sacred Profane in Portland and Biddeford, Maine. The two-year-old brewery makes by-the-book lagers — one light, one dark — poured with a thick collar of foam using a Lukr draft system that cost $80,000 to install.
Other times, a Lukr tap lands in the lap of someone like Jake Atkinson. His Philadelphia brewery, Human Robot, has turned chugging $3 “milk tubes” of foam into a rite of passage for customers. The drink is so popular, he trademarked the name in 2021.
Still, Mr. Atkinson, 43, has principles; he only runs Czech-style lagers through his Lukr taps. “We had to draw the line somewhere,” he said.
Mr. Ifergan of Niteglow falls into a third camp. At his brewery, he runs imperial stouts and guava sours through his Czech taps, selling test tubes of foam that evoke chocolate milkshakes and fruit smoothies.
“We hypothesized that these faucets would amplify the flavor and aroma and sweetness of the beer,” he said. He might be onto something.
“One of them tastes like Count Chocula cereal,” Mr. Ifergan said.
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