Well first we woke early and went to the Astronomical Tower again to climb up to the top and get a view of the city that way. It was worth the climb.
So we booked tickets on a bus to Plzen that would take about an hour. The drive was absolutely gorgeous. The country side of the Czech Republic is picture perfect with its rolling hills and mountains with quaint little villages tucked into the expansive green valleys. We got there just in time for our 12:45 English speaking tour. Beer is the oldest alcoholic beverage in the world. The Sumerians are credited for the creation of the first beer, but Plzen is home to lager. Czech is known for their beer and specifically their Pilsen larger. This beer became the prototype pilsner beers and inspired 2/3s of all the world beers labelled pils, pilsner, or pilsener. Lager was born here in 1839 and Pilsner Urquell opened October 4, 1852. It makes up 70% of the world's beer production today and Plzen is the world metropolis of beer.
The seal for Pilsner Urquell is The Jubilee Gate or the Entrance to the brewery. There is a water tower on the property that used to hold all of the special water used to make the perfect lager. The tower is the same height as the Statue of Liberty and serves as a lighthouse to welcome tourists to the sea of beer. It stands on the highest piece of ground for a good view directly over the old city gallows, probably stationed there for the same purpose.
Pilsner Urquell was the first brewery to transport beer globally. Additionally, it was the first brewery to have its own train tracks right from the door and eventually purchased their own locomotive for transport of their product.
In the new bottling room, 26 employees operate the entire production per shift if all 4 lines are running. Twice a week they sanitize the room for 8 or 10 hours on Tuesday or Sunday respectively. It looked very state of the art! Unfortunately we were there on sanitization day so we werent able to see the lines in action.
The brewing process takes 10 hours. The reason it takes this long is that they are still triple hopping the beer- 90 minutes per cycle. Afterwards they triple mash the beer as well. This takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money but they don't want to change it because it is so perfect and has been for over 150 years.
Urquell means original well/spring/source, therefore giving us the Original source- old spring- pilsner beer that we love today. It is unfiltered and unpasteurized and tastes like a dream. We got to see the old brewing rooms and machines as well as the tunnels used to store the barrels of beer. Freezing.
After our tour we ate lunch at the Na Spilce restaurant which is also the biggest beer house in Bohemia. I had a super yummy dark beer and some wonderfully delicious Czech cuisine. It was pork shoulder with sauerkraut, beer juice (?) and potato dumplings. It was so so so delicious.
Back in prague we tried to catch the market and missed it but made it across the Charles bridge and to the Lennon wall. Cool place. Not really anything else to say about it and to be perfectly honest I don't know the history, so yeah.... We grabbed dinner at an overpriced place nearby and started our dinner tradition- we go around the table and share one thing that everyone doesn't know about us. At first it was really hard to think of things but now we have subjects. It is entertaining always and a good way to get to know the people we are traveling with.
On the way home we got Absinthe, so there's that.
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