I generally agree with travel writer Chuck Thompson’s description of brewery tours (Wow! They brew beer in big vats! Who knew?). But today’s journey was less a brewery tour and more a pilgrimage. Today we go to visit the mighty Pilsner Urquell. I know that Pilsň is one of the great cites in Europe, and has a lot of stuff that would probably be really cool to see, but today we are just paying our respects to the beer.
So what are we talking about here? What makes this stuff so special? Indulge me for a moment while I rant. Pilsň was founded by King Wenceslas II (not that “good king” one) in 1295. He awarded the first patents to brew beer in the city. The reputation of that beer was – well, not so good. Cloudy, and pretty inconsistent tasting to be exact. So, after the city brewers cranked out a particularly undrinkable batch in 1838, the local citizens, taking matters in their own hands, grabbed the 36 or so barrels of the stuff and marched it to city hall, where it was unceremoniously dumped in the square. The town leaders, no dummies they, decided it would be a good time to build a new brewery and to hire the best and the brightest to put it together. Somewhere in Bavaria they unearthed the new Brewmaster, Josef Groll, a man so rude and bad-tempered that his own father called him the “coarsest man in all Bavaria.” He came in and changed the entire brewing process. The beer was now brewed using a triple decoction method of extracting the sugar from the grain (ask me sometime, I’ll explain it). The special yeast was smuggled out of a nearby abbey as payment of a debt. The beer was then cold lagered in hand carved caves for five weeks. The result was consistent in flavor and beautifully clear brown in color. And so pilsner style beer was born. The name “Pilsner Urquell,” in case you were curious, means “from the original source, Pilsň” in German.
We met our “Tour Dude” at the Visitors Centre (English spelling, you know), decked out in his Urquell T-Shirt (Urquell was bought out by SAB Miller several years ago. Of course they have shirts – and hats and glassware and cards and…), casual slacks, tevos, a slender build and a three day growth that seems to be de rigueur these days. Z promptly dubs him “the good looking one,” as in “at least we got the…”
Tour Dude took us upstairs to watch a film, and then to the bottling plant (state of the art). We discovered there that Bob and Doug (Strange Brew, beauty, eh?) would be out of a job because they watch for mice – and broken or imperfect bottles on the line by computer and robotics now. From there to another film, in 360° whelm-O-vision this time, and then to… see that beer is made in big vats, I know, I know…
But, my friends, that is not, of course why we are here. Oh no. Our Tour Dude now takes us to the ancient, hand carved cellars, where it all began. This is also where, to this very day, test batches of Urquell are still brewed using the original methods according to the original recipe, to be used for comparison for quality control with the commercial suds. (Note: according to their web site and Tour Dude, no taster has ever to this day been able to tell the difference.) They still use open vats and everything. And they share! Unfiltered, unpasteurized, pure Urquell, just the way they drank it in 1838-ish (minus three of the five strains of yeast, about which more in a bit). This is the only place in the world where you can get the stuff. And they are handing a sample – to me! It doesn’t get any better than this!
What does it taste like? Oh, my friends… This stuff could make the blind see and the lame walk. Given to the right people this stuff would be the cause of world peace. It is the true fountain of youth! Duck Dunn wasn’t referring to “the Band” but to Urquell when he said, “this stuff is powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.” Sorry. The aroma is like beautiful flowers on a sunny spring day. The flowery hops join with the caramel-ly sweet malt and do a little dance of joy down your tongue, leaving you with a surprisingly huge wallop of hops, a really big grin, and a quest for more. It is, as expected, a huge hop-head beer – bigger than you can possibly imagine. You’ve had the stuff they sell in stores (and if you haven’t, are you crazy?). This is that stuff on steroids. Lots of them!
Look, don’t take my word for it. Michael Jackson (the beer god, not the “king of pop”) calls it one of the true world class beers (but not as complex as it used to be when there were a complete five strains of yeast in the recipe – I told you I would get back to that). The Beverage Tasting Institute (the industry group that hires independent adjudicators to rate their drinks, mostly wine) gave Urquell 93 out of a possible 100 points. This is the highest score ever given to any pilsner rated. Amazing, remarkable stuff.
Go if you can – it’s worth the trip. And I’ll tell that to your Great-Great-Grandchildren.
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