OnTap Magazine

CZECH LIST It had been at the top of our editor’s bucket list for years, but could a trip to the birthplace of Pilsner really live up to Lucy Corne’s expectations? In fact, can any bucket list adventure ever measure up? I n the 48 hours we’d been in the Czech Republic we’d drunk more beers than I could be bothered to count. We’d been to tourist trap bars and backstreet craft beer dives. We’d walked the length of Prague alternating between handpicked drinking haunts and a bit of malt-free sightseeing. We’d even bathed in beer, stripping off at one of the city’s beer spas, where you drink as much as you like while soaking in a tub of hot water mixed with a couple of pints of beer and a jug of hop slurry. But as much as a beer bath had long been on my travel to-do list, it was all just a prelude to the main event. As an adult you don’t often get that giddy ‘kid on Christmas Eve’ feeling. But as soon as we stepped off the train to see town’s name hanging above the platform, my stomach performed a series of excited flip-flops. We had arrived in Plzen. THE MOTHER CHURCH It is no secret that I adore Pilsner Urquell. When the 177-year-old Czech brand was sold off as part of AB-InBev’s takeover of SAB in2016, the ‘original pilsner’ gradually disappeared from South African fridges. Since then, the memory of its perfectly balanced endless drinkability has lodged itself in my head. It’s like the One That Got Away – the high school crush you never conquered and who therefore remains perfect in your mind for all time. Pilsner Urquell was on a pedestal the likes of which are normally only seen holding up statues of communist dictators. It was time to visit its birthplace to see if the beer could possibly live up. Central Plzen is a beautiful little place, all cobbled streets and colourful facades and fresh beer on every corner. The outskirts though are not so pretty and we got a fairly detailed look at them as we wandered map-free, trying to work out how to navigate the ring road to get to the brewery. After several years anticipating and planning this trip, our arrival was inauspicious, wandering first through what seemed to be the staff car park before eventually finding the legendary gates immortalised on PU’s label. We had arrived at the Mother Church. It was 34 degrees outside and I had never wanted a beer so badly, but anyone who’s ever visited a brewery knows that first you take the tour and then you sample the wares. I’m not here to sugar coat this tale or try to make out that all bucket list ticks work out as perfectly as they had in your head. The tour itself was disappointing. Led by guides rather than brewers, a tour around the Pilsner Urquell brewery is pretty much the same as every other brewery tour you’ve been on – and I have been on a lot of brewery tours. I was still giddy at the thought of being in a room where the next batch of PU was currently boiling, although having built this place up so much in my mind, I couldn’t help wanting something more than the usual “these are hops, this is a mash tun” tour. But it was all leading up to one special moment. I had heard so many friends talk about it like a near-religious experience: the chance to sip unfiltered PU in the very cellars where it ferments. Ours was the last tour of the day and we felt like the guide was about ready A near-religious experience ontapmag.co.za | Summer 2019 | 35