The account of my visit to Czechoslovakia 25 years ago continues.
After checking out from our hotel, we were driven the short distance to the Pilsner Urquell Brewery on the other side of town. A brewery visit with its inevitable samples of free beer was the last thing I felt like at the time, but by the time we had been shown round this fascinating birthplace of the world’s most popular style of beer, I was in the mood to try a glass or two for myself.
The late, and much missed, eminent beer writer Michael Jackson captured the essence of Pilsner Urquell in his ground-breaking Channel 4 series “The Beer Hunter”. Aside from the impressive and grandiose brewhouse with its gleaming polished brew kettles, the part I found most interesting were the miles of subterranean cellars. Here, in tunnels hewn out from the soft sandstone rock, the partially fermented Pilsner Urquell was allowed to slowly mature in huge, pitch-lined wooden casks. I say was, because nowadays the brewery has gone all “high-tech” and has embraced Western brewing methods with a vengeance. Today’s Pilsner Urquell ferments and matures in a forest of gleaming stainless-steel conical vessels, which many drinkers claim has led to there being less body in the beer and a somewhat blander taste.
It was an awe inspiring sight to see row after row of these massive casks, kept naturally at a constant temperature all the year round. The only sound, apart from the tramp of our feet, was the gentle hiss of escaping gas, and the constant drip-drip of water percolating through the sandstone above our heads. By this time I was well in the mood to sample the end product, having seen the care and devotion lavished upon it.
The sampling took place in a baronial style hall, complete with dark wood panelling and an impressive amount of cut glass. Waiters bearing trays of foaming tankards of Pilsner Urquell appeared, and we all sat enjoying the beer as we listened patiently to a speech of welcome from a member of the brewery management. This sampling was not to be the end of the morning’s beer swilling. Upon leaving the brewery through its imposing triumphal-arched gates, we were ushered into a tavern virtually adjacent to the brewery entrance - in effect the “Brewery Tap”. Here lunch was provided, unfortunately suet dumpling and pickled gherkins once again. The saving grace was yet more free Pilsner Urquell and, after that the afternoon seemed to vanish in an alcoholic haze!
After lunch it was time to re-board the coach and set off for Prague - the highlight and main purpose of the trip. We travelled through some very pleasant countryside, which became increasingly hillier as we approached the Czech capital. We eventually arrived at our hotel,the modern Hotel Garni Olympik on the outskirts of the city. Checking in again took an age, but we found our rooms’ comfortable, if a trifle on the basic side. We were joined at the hotel by the two members of the party who had opted to fly to Czechoslovakia. Their journey from England had taken a matter of hours, but they had missed out on the Pilsner Urquell brewery visit. To our continued amusement, our Cedock guide kept referring to them as the “two flying gentlemen” for the duration of the trip.
Dinner had been arranged for us that evening at the famous U Fleku, a rambling old tavern which is claimed to be the oldest brew-pub in the world. The pub dates back to 1499, so there may be some truth in this claim! So far as I remember, we were charged with making our own way to U Fleku. One of my friends was a natural when it came to interpreting public transport maps. His German was also better than my own; which was useful as that language was quite widely understood in Czechoslovakia at the time, especially by the older generation. With Mark’s help we successfully mastered the Prague tram system, and before too long found ourselves in the courtyard of U Fleku. Here large numbers of mainly young people were sitting out enjoying the tasty dark lager, called Flekovsky Dark, brewed on the premises. Although it was early October, it was quite a balmy evening so we decided to join them for a while, whilst waiting for the rest of our party to arrive.
Dinner took place in one of U Fleku’s dark, cavernous rooms, decorated in typical Bohemian style with dark wood panelling and plenty of exposed beams. Once again the meal was nothing special but the beer was free, and what's more it was U Fleku’s world classic, dark lager . We were not the only party of visitors in the pub that night; there were several other parties in the same room as ourselves. When the meal was over, we were ushered out, presumably to make way for the next group of diners.
I have a feeling that the pub may either have closed early, or we just decided to look for somewhere else to drink. As we wandered the streets of Prague, everything seemed eerily quiet, especially for a Saturday, with very little traffic about and not much else happening. In the absence of a suitable guidebook we decided our best course of action was to make our way back to the hotel just in case all public transport ceased running for the night. There was a group of East German girls travelling back on the same tram as ourselves, but our attempts to chat them up met with little success. This was no real loss as they were a humourless bunch who seemed to regard us with a great deal of suspicion. We had however, fared somewhat better than certain others of our party who had been arrested and fined after being caught relieving themselves in the street; their antics having caught the attention of some plain-clothes policemen!
Back at the hotel we met up with some other members of our group who suggested adjourning to a bar they had found earlier that evening. This was but a short stroll away and, despite being very much a locals’ bar, served an excellent glass of beer. One thing we all found puzzling, but very welcoming, about Czech beer was the fact that whilst it all seemed to be served by a pressure system, it didn’t taste at all gassy. I later discovered that this was because it was dispensed by air pressure in a system remarkably similar to that formerly employed in many Scottish pubs. This gives the beer a smooth texture, and a dense creamy head.
I was glad of my bed that night and slept like a log (hardly surprising given the day’s
excesses!). The next day was devoted to site-seeing and culture and will be recounted in a later post.
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