Home     Destinations      Travel Tips     Photos     Maps     Beer     Contact Info

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Pilsner Urquell Brewery Tour

Sometime in 1295, the city of New Plzen was founded. I'm sure some very interesting things happened over the next several centuries, but let's skip to the most important. In 1839, it was announced that a brewery was coming to town. It took over three years to get it built, and the first brew occurred on 5 October, 1842. In the days before refrigeration, the beer was only brewed in the cooler months, typically October - April. Now, they do it year-round at the same location. The town is just called Plzen, I guess because it's no longer new. I'm surprised George Steinbrenner never tried to change the name of New York to York. Sure, there already is a York in some other country, but nobody cares about that place and the Yankees would have made billions selling all new hats and jerseys with new logos. They probably would have been unstoppable at that point and took over the country in a fashion only Trump and his insane supporters could imagine. 


Back to the beer. If you've ever had a Pilsner Urquell it came from this brewery. It's the only place they brew it, and from what I gathered, it's the only beer brewed there. The company has a few other beers, but they are brewed elsewhere. All of the ingredients come from nearby in the Czech Republic, as they have for over 170 years. The recipe remains the same and the process changed only by advancements in technology. A picture of the bottling facility shows that it is almost completely automated.

The only thing they haven't figured out how to automate is the mopping of the floors. Are you  serious, they can fill a billion bottles of beer a day with the flip of a switch, but they can't figure out how to make a fancy industrial-strength Roomba?

No Laverne, no Shirley. Just a bunch of bottles on a conveyor belt being monitored by computers and lasers. 


I forget which process is which, but here are some pics from the different brewing areas. The copper stuff was for hot portions requiring good heat transfer. The stainless steel tanks were still in a pretty hot room, but for whatever reason did not require the heat transfer you can achieve with the copper. 





They make 18 billion barrels a day of beer in those rooms. OK. Probably not that many, but it was a lot. It doesn't matter that I can't remember the process or the quantities. I have pictures of their secret process and a map of the underground passageways where they store the beer and ferment it or something.



Here are some barrels of beer doing whatever they do in the cold underworld of Plzen. It's like 6 Celsius down there. I was pretty surprised the barrels were open like this, but it seemed pretty clean, I guess.


We moved on through the passageways that were dug by hand for over 100 years and are over 9 km in total length. And we found....more barrels!!!! But these were closed.


And some were tapped and we got delicious unfiltered beers to drink in the cellars of the birthplace of Pilsner. And it was glorious and that was the end of the tour.


Oh, wait. That wasn't the end. There was something about how they  used to harvest ice from the river. and store it in these giant rooms to keep the cellars cold. I don't have a picture and they don't do it any more, so I guess it's not important.

Here's the front gate I was looking for when I went to the tour. I came up to the brewery from the secret back way, so didn't see until after. Just like you. Cheers! Or as they  say in Plzen, Na zdarvi!


No comments: