Beer Tour II

Plzeň is the city where it all began. Sure, the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians knew how to brew. Sure, the Germanic tribes knew the secrets of yeast. Sure, the ancient Celts imbibed that frothy drink that eased the muscles and quieted the soul. But it wasn’t until the brewers of Plzeň in western Bohemia discovered the secret of bottom-fermentation that the world could be graced with a beverage properly called “beer.”

At least that’s what any self-respecting Plzeňer will tell you. And if you know your beers, you’ll agree (or so I'm told).

On Saturday we toured the brewery in Plzeň. Plzeň is an hour and a half by train west of Prague, an industrial city settled on the confluence of three rivers. Plzeňský Prazdroj, or “Plzeň Brewery,” sits just outside of the city centre on a large piece of land that has the air of medieval-town-done-Disney-style—but not quite. There’s a large stone entrance gate with a guard and red-and-white bars to keep unauthorized vehicles out. The little cobblestone street is clean, there’s an over-sized chessboard on the sidewalk on which the pawns are stylized beer bottles, and there’s another green iron gate through which tours enter the brewery. And there are little patches of tulips reminding you that it's spring in Central Europe.

Our guide—quite proficient in English and unafraid to yell at the construction workers whose noise impinged on her monologue—led us first to a large board explaining in flowchart form the intricacies of brewing. Barley, water, mixing, heating, mixing, hops (only the female parts, by the way), fermenting, fermenting, fermenting, and drinking! Then she took us past the fermentation tanks and into the extensive cellars (9 kilometers of zig-zagging tunnels) where the thousands of barrels used to be stored.

They still brew beer in barrels, but only a few barrels and only for two reasons. First, they want to serve it to tourists (this is where we score big time). Second, they want to make sure that no matter what technological advances are introduced, the beer stays the same quality as the original product. That’s the kind of traditionalism we can live with.

It was standing before eight huge barrels of actively fermenting brew that we found out Plzeň’s secret: by controlling the temperature of the fermenting mixture (and keeping it low), they get the yeast to sink in the barrel. This is called “bottom fermentation” and gives the beer a distinctive bitterness. But even though the name of the beer from Plzeň is trademarked, the name of the process is not. So anywhere you see a beer with the label “Pilsener” (which is German for Plzeňer), it should have also been produced by the same process.

After delivering this unique bit of information our guide led us over to where a gentleman distributed cups of beer tapped right from the barrel. That’s right—no pasteurization, no filtering, no nothing. We had old-school beer, Martin-Luther-style.

It tasted just like the Staropramen I had last week. Oh, well.

So we’ve done it. We’ve toured the place where golden lagers and bottom fermentation began, and plucked the fruit, as it were, from the vine. If you’re keeping score, mark Plzeň, Czech Republic on your card.

By the way, for some reason the brewery has chosen to market (even here in the Czech Republic) under the German permutation of their name: “Pilsner Urquell.” So if you’re interested in tasting the real thing, wherever in the world you are, look for Pilsner Urquell (not Plzeňský Prazdroj).

~emrys