Plisner Urquel, aka Plzeňský prazdroj

J, I'm warning you right now that you're not allowed to salivate on your keyboard.


Note our two photos above. You see the one on the left, that's proper Pilsner, served in a proper glass. I haven't met a good P.U. down here in Brno, tho I truthfully haven't looked hard. However, when you go to a nice pub they bring you a tall glass of dark yellow beer with a light, creamy head on top, normally on the cold side of chilled. It tastes just a touch buttery, a little sweetly-sour, and a lot hoppy. It is, however, a very light beer, saved from being watery only by the high quality of its taste (when properly served). The picture in question was taken in Loket.

You see the one on right? It's a plastic cup. It was served too cold with too much head, and the room is probably about 4°C. It is, however, a much better beer. Why? you may ask. And I might tell you that this is the nefiltrovaný, unfiltered, freshly brewed in oak barrels especially for the tourists of the Plzeňský prazdroj brewery. It's thick on your tongue and is about the weight of a nice red beer, but the taste washes away much quicker than a red, and you're just left with a very nice taste of hops in your mouth. For the Czech Republic it's the closest I've come to beer-you-can-chew, but you still can't. It is gorgeous stuff, jam packed with flavor and texture. I'm told that Pilsner Urquel is brewed with something like triple the average amount of hops in it. We had a Gambrinus with dinner about an hour after the cup of nefiltrovaný. It tasted and felt almost like water in comparison. The only place to get this ambrosia outside the brewery is called Na Parkánu. Dig the *chink.* Note the color difference from this stuff to the regular Pilsner.


On a side note: while we were at Na Parkánu we ran into this stuff called Master. They served it in 13° & 18° form, which is something like 5.5% and 7% for the rest of us. It's great! Dark Czech beers are normally very sweet and pretty light, but this had a normal weight and a very carmelly feel on the tongue. It's got a heavy, tan head and smells strongly of fruit or flowers. Try some if you get the opportunity.

Pilsner Urquel Brewery

The Pilsner Brewery experience is pretty cool, especially if you've only got a little knowledge about the how and what that goes into beer making. It costs about 130 kc and it wouldn't be very fun if you didn't wait for an English speaking tour. You start off with a general history of movie and a three story model of an old brewhouse. It's then pointed out that Plzeňský Prazdroj makes two of every three beers sold in the Czech Republic (they also own Gambrinus and Kozel). It's also owned by SAB Miller and is the flagship brand of the company, so there's a display of some of Miller's multitudinous international beer brands.

First stop, after a pointless bus ride of about 100 meters, is the coopers' workshop. Cooping, if you don't know, is the dying art of barrel making. The only reason that the guys here are even employed is because of us, the tourists. However, ten of them work here and they've got a pretty cool workshop. The oak for the barrels is aged for ten years before they do anything with it. And their dust collector unit is two stories tall.
Take the pointless bus back to the place you started and enter the presently-being-remodeled brewhouse. There they give you a brief overview of the Plzeňský process.

Germinated barley, roasted and milled, then mixed with water and thirty percent of each batch is roasted, mixed back in, and done again, for a total of three times. It's then unhopped wort. They add hops, in this case some famous stuff from Bohemia and some other type from Moravia that they like to play down. The yeast is added. There's a cold filter process, the beer sits for a short period, then is moved to a larger vat and aged for 12 weeks or so. They like to say this is the original process, but then they also note that improved temperature and pressure technologies have taken the second aging session down from an original time of around 3 months.

Then they take you into this giant modern elevator. Dave noted that he'd played music in clubs with smaller square footage. As soon as the elevator door opens (to get in) your nostrils quail under the weight and strangeness of a slightly sour roasted smell, that I was later to learn, is mostly hops. Then you watch a video on the origins of the ingredients while standing on this quietly turning platform. Then you go the the Hall of Ingredients, where you can sample barley, malt, and hops. The barley is normal cereal grain, the malt would be good as breakfast cereal, and I'd advise you not to eat the hops. Think alfalfa that gives your mouth a dry-bitter pucker.
You're then taken to some boilers and mash-tuns that are set-up as models. After that you get to peek into the real plant. These things are gigantic, there's a full story drop from the upper level to the lower, and the second step tanks are about twice as large.

After this you get to see a small museum with artifacts and documents. Here's a brief version: in 1845 or so the town residents began complaining about the quality of the beer, and dumped a bunch out on the mayor's front steps. The roughly three hundred families in town with official brewing licenses got together and amalgamated. (Many of these families are still minority stakeholders.) The beer became the pride of the town. Somewhere around the turn of the last century they began winning lots of prizes. You get to see some of these and look at cups that Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Bohemia, drank from. It even survived the privations of Nazism and Communist nationalization. Then it's time for the fun stuff.



You go down stairs to the old cellars. Our guide, who was pretty cool and funny despite his broken English, told us there's something like nine kilometers of hallway hidden under the brewery. Most of which is unused now. It's also pretty cold. They used to keep it even colder by harvesting a year's worth of ice from the river in winter and dropping it down into this giant refrigeration vault. You get to see the barrels of beer that they brew especially for the tourists.

The marks on the barrel are as follows, strength:12º [about 5%], starting date: 11th of February, starting temperature: 5º C, and the type of yeast used, followed by the temperature on different days. Then you get to taste the beer! Yummy, yummy stuff. More on that in the next post. After that they take you topside, say “That's all,” and point you towards the gift shop.

Sping Break: Plzeň

Plzeň is a depressing place. You step off the bus and are greeted by a classic communist-era wall of a building with a giant Skoda emblem perched on top. The air is gritty and most things are old and grungy. Parts of it are amazing and cool, but that is the general atmosphere for tourists.
This was one of the few cities in the Czech Republic to be liberated by the U.S. in WWII. (Brno and Prague were both taken by the Soviets.) And they have a monument that actually says, “Thank You, America.” I thought that was pretty cool.

Like any Eastern European town the differences between then and now can be quite glaring. This building shows three things: the town becoming the seat of the Holy Roman Empire (for a year), successfully withstanding a decade plus Swedish seige, and ?possibly? the 50 year anniversary of the city's brewery. It was probably built sometime around the turn of the last century, when the town was prosperous.


This is what sits below it today. “Thank You, America” indeed.



Dům Kultury translates to something like Cultural House or House of Culture. Yup, quite....cultural....

But, when you get to the old center of town, most of that is forgiven. I was totally blown away after seeing all the beautiful facades. Most of these were probably added or redone around or after 1900 when the town was booming with successful industry, mostly owned by Emil Skoda.


It's cool to see this building is still fulfilling its original purpose. [click for facade detail]


This is a justice building of some sort, maybe the local courthouse.



Plzeň is also home to the largest synagogue in the Czech Republic, which Rough Guide states is the 2nd largest in Europe, which means it could be 3rd largest in the world, as someone told me. Like many things on this trip, it was no-entry-until-summer-or-at-least-spring.

The town's alright. The people there seem a lot less homogeneous than here in Brno. More odd colors and stereotypical subculture styles. Kinda like the difference between say, Wallingford and Georgetown in Seattle.

The highlight for me was the brewery. Not only for the beer. I'm not such a fan of Pilsner in the wild, but the stuff from the brewer is wonderful. This place was chock full of history and it's presented very well, too. It gets it own post.

Returned

I am back. Slightly rested, slightly footsore, and have seen a lot more. Here's a pictoral preview of the first day of my journey: Plzeň.


This is the essential Plzeň. Left to right we have a very old religious monument, ugly stadium lights, and the smokestack + water tower of the brewery.


Old Czech towns are warrens of interconnected buildings.


Let us celebrate the glories of Communism, comrade!


There are some truly amazing buildings on the old town square.


But this is the essential take-away from the town: it is the place from which comes beer.

More, and more thoughtful, soon.