Plzen: Craft Beer and Culture Capital

From the padded seat of her delivery cart, Jana Micova takes the reins of her two trusted steeds: Barna and Byka. Stacked neatly behind her are barrels of Pilsner Urquell, which Jana and her fillies will distribute to select pubs across Plzen, some of which have been receiving these horse delivered barrels since 1842. The trio do the rounds twice a week, evoking memories of a bygone era that most locals and tourists are too young to remember. They trot through Plzen whatever the weather; delighting in their job during warm spring dawns and cursing it in the cold winter mornings.

“We like to keep traditions like these alive,” says Honza Dienstbier, a guide at the Pilsner Urquell Brewery, whose surname sounds remarkably like a type of beer. “That’s why we also employ coopers to make our barrels – we’re probably the only brewery in the world that still employs coopers on site.”

Like all good raconteurs Honza tells his stories over a couple of beers, which we quaff in a tunnel beneath the brewery. Down here, in this misty subterranean passageway, is where they brew the best stuff, he tells me. “This is the unfiltered, unpasteurised pilsner,” he smiles, patting a giant wooden barrel. “It’s brewed the traditional way, but we only make it in small batches – it has to be drunk within five days.” This special brew is served at the brewery and delivered to select local boozers by Jana and her steeds – U Šenku and Na Parkána are amongst the lucky establishments – but the odd consignment does find its way to Prague and even London.

Honza opens the tap of a nearby barrel and lets the cloudy, amber liquid pour into two glasses. He passes one to me; we toast to good health (na zdravi) and take greedy gulps. It’s 10 a.m.

 

Brewing history

If you’re going to have a pint before lunchtime, this is the place to do it. Regarded by some as the most important brewery in the world, it lays claim to inventing the pilsner lager, the most successful beer on the planet and one that has been replicated from the Ukraine to the U.S.A. and everywhere in between. The legend goes that pilsner was a happy accident, the serendipitous result of a misjudged experiment. In reality it was carefully crafted by the Bavarian brewmaster, Josef Groll, who was employed at the brewery in 1839.

“He travelled the world looking for ideas,” explains Honza. “In England he liked the pale malted barley, so he decided to use that.” Groll found that marrying pale malted barley with strong Czech hops and soft Plzen water was a match made in heaven. The local beer had never tasted so good; in fact Plzen had, by the early 1800s, become synonymous with lousy lager. Every man and his dog was brewing beer in the town and quantity was definitely winning out over quality. “In 1838 the authorities had to spill out 36 barrels of beer because it was unfit to drink,” says Honza, visibly irked. “Because there were no standardized processes, the quality was inconsistent.”

So the good townsfolk of Plzen got together, decided to build a brewery, employ talents such as Groll and introduce standardized practices. Pilsner Urquell was born.

 

Changing culture

But Plzen is not all about beer. Along with being the pilsner capital of the world, the city also has the bragging rights to being named the European Capital of Culture, 2015 – an honor it will share with the Belgian metropolis of Mons. “This is very exciting for us,” says Mirka Reifova, communications manager for Plzen. “We have been preparing for this for five years and I think it is an opportunity for us to change Plzen’s image of being an industrial city or a city only known for beer.”

Helping to change those perceptions will be a packed calendar of cultural events – art exhibitions, stage performances and outdoor concerts – which will be taking place in the city throughout 2015. The hotly anticipated New Theatre, officially unveiled this month, will be hosting many performances. It’s the Czech Republic’s first purpose-built theatre to open for more than 50 years.

As well as culture there will be a strong emphasis on the history of Plzen, which will be of particular interest to U.S. tourists. “Plzen was liberated by the Americans in World War II,” says Mirka. “But during the communist regime we weren’t allowed to talk about that – the official line was that we were liberated by the Red Army.”

To learn more about Plzen, also famous for being the home of Skoda, I hook up with local tour guide, Jitka Bilkova, who takes me on a whistle-stop tour of her city. We meet in the old town square, Namesti Republiky, which is surrounded by magnificent baroque façades and dominated by the towering gothic structure of St Bartholomew Church. I quiver when Jitka tells me this charming old town square, with its gorgeous frescos and cobbled streets, was once earmarked for destruction. “During the communist era they wanted to demolish all this to make the city more modern,” she says. “Thankfully they didn’t.”

With the 25^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaching, talk turns to life in Plzen behind the Iron Curtain. “We couldn’t go abroad – at least not to countries outside the USSR – and there wasn’t enough fruit and vegetables,” she recalls, as we walk in the shadows of St Bartholomew Church. “It wasn’t good to speak about certain things either, but in the communist era everyone had work so there were advantages – a lot of old people feel the modern era is not so good.”

Yet a tangible sense of optimism prevails amongst most locals, who speak enthusiastically to me about Plzen’s status as the European Capital of Culture and of the boost it will give to the local economy and creative industries – and that’s something I think we can all drink to.

www.czechtourism.com/a/pilsen-area/

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