BEST Brewery Tour in the WORLD?!

Below is an embedded video which is entitled “BEST Brewery Tour in the WORLD?! Pilsner Urquell Tour in Czech Republic.”

I had the pleasure of taking a tour of the Pilsner Urquell brewery back in 2019 and I provided some details of this tour in my article:

“Pilsner Urquell Brewery (Plzeňský Prazdroj)

Before we left for our vacation I had in mind visiting the Pilsner Urquell brewery – the birthplace of the Bohemian Pilsner. It was a fairly short train ride (it took over an hour) to get to Pilsen from Prague but well worth the visit. There is plenty of good sightseeing in town but I will concentrate on the brewery tour here.

Firstly, let me state that the tour was very good! The tour took 1 hour and 40 minutes. This tour was on par with the tour given at Sierra Nevada – Mills River, NC.

I also need to caveat that much of the details below are via the tour guide. Our tour guide gave a good tour but she does not have a brewing background; she was hit or miss in answering my many technical brewing questions.

Below are some of my notes I scribbled on a piece of paper:

The brewery was constructed from 1839 – 1842

When we were being transported in a bus the tour guide pointed to a building where they treat the water (obtained from wells) to soften/demineralize to water for brewing. Later on, I asked her what was the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of the well water and also the water used for brewing – she did not know the answers here.

During the tour of the packaging lines (bottles and cans) she stated the beer was flash pasteurized prior to filling the bottles/cans.

The barley they use is grown in Moravia and they malt the barley at the brewery.

They reuse the yeast 4 times.

She stated the yeast is a single strain. Later in the tour (in the cellars) it was listed on the side of the wood fermenter: “H II” for the yeast used to ferment the cellar beers.

They conduct a triple decoction mash and when heating up the wort/grains for decoction they use a high temperature natural gas heating – 600 degrees C. Caramelization occurs here.

The most fascinating portion of the tour for me was going into the cellars where they used to ferment/lager their beers before they modernized in 1992. The stated claim for why they still produce beer the ‘old way’ is as a quality control effort – to ensure that the beers being produced in stainless steel is ‘exactly’ the same as how the beer used to be produced.

They ferment and lager in oak barrels (oak trees from the Czech Republic). The lager oak barrels are lined with pitch so the beer is not in contact with wood during the lagering process. Some of the details for how they brew in the cellars:

They ferment in open barrels for something like 10 days (or until the beer is deemed finished).

They lager for about 30 days (or until the beer is deemed finished).

They ferment and lager at the same temperature: 5 °C (41 °F)

At the end of the tour, they pour you a 0.3 liter glass of beer directly from the lagering barrel for you to drink. That beer is unfiltered and unpasteurized and is damn tasty!

We were able to drink this unfiltered and unpasteurized Pilsner Urquell later in the day when eating lunch at the nearby Na Parkanu Pub”

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/Czech_Beers

After watching the below video, it would seem they have ‘updated’ the tour to include a lot of video content which was not available when I took the tour back in 2019 (5 years ago). The video/graphic content looks really cool.

So, what brewery tour(s) have you taken which you would categorize as being the best brewery tour in the world?

Na Zdravi

 

And being able to ‘connect’ with the brewery folks can indeed make for an enjoyable visit/tour.

In a past NBW thread I discussed a visit to Big Spruce Brewing Co. in Nova Scotia which also had a sorta Philly aspect to it:

“At the outdoor bar I ordered a flight (four small pours) while my wife ordered a pint of their Pilsner. All of the beers were very good – excellent! Needless to say but I ordered more beer afterwards and I very much enjoyed drinking those as well. As we were enjoying the wonderful outdoor atmosphere and beers I started chatting with someone who happened to be one of the brewers. His name is Matt Wanamaker and I made mention I was from the Philly area and that the Wanamaker name is famous due to the large Department store of Wanamaker’s (which is now defunct). He replied that he is part of the family that started this store (and subsequent chain of stores). I even mentioned the Philly store was famous from an older movie and before I could finish he answered “The movie Mannequin”. Well I had such a good time it turns out I forgot my Phillies cap of “World Series 2008 Champions” and I was quite bummed about that but there is good news:

The next day we were in the area and I went to Big Spruce (again) to see if somebody turned in my cap and to my great joy it was there. I then asked if there was any chance if we could take a tour of the brewery and Matt generously spent part of the lunch hour with us showing us the heritage brewery (less than 10 barrels) and their newer, expanded second brewery just down the street. A wonderful tour and Matt patiently and freely responded to my numerous brewing questions. My wife and I had a great time! I even had a chance to chat with the owner (Jeremy White) for 10-15 minutes and he generously provided for me today’s beer: Big Spruce Hundred Cape Breton Wild Ale.”

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/new-beer-sunday-week-751.618928/#post-6563377

Cheers!

 

I am reminded that I took a tour of the Sierra Nevada Mills River, NC brewery in 2017. I discussed this visit in a prior thread; I took this tour prior to visiting the Pilsner Urquell brewery:

“The facility is absolutely gorgeous!! They have a large taproom/restaurant where there are lots of beer choices beyond the SN beers we can buy at the store. I ate two meals there and they were excellent. There is an outdoor area with a bandstand. It was cool/cold at the time I was there so no real activity at the time but I was told they bring in bands in the warm times of the year (weekends).

I took a 90 minute tour of the brewery. The brewery is beautiful and this was the best brewery tour I have ever attended.

There are many acres of land surrounding the building that will soon be open for some short hiking.

I would encourage y'all to visit!!”

Cheers!

 

Thanks for posting that video. It was AWESOME!!

Sláinte!

 

Does Bill P. = Bill Pierce? If so, that must have been a wonderful visit.

Cheers!

P.S. I miss Bill Pierce. RIP!