For our last full day in the Czech Republic, my wife and I made a day trip to the birthplace of Pilsner beer – Plzen (aka Pilsen). Our goal – tour Plzenzky Prazdroj, the brewery that makes the world-famous Pilsner Urquell beer.

Plzen is about 57 miles southwest of Prague. We traveled by train which is a very easy, quick and cheap way to get to Plzen. Two round trip tickets cost less than twenty U.S. dollars. And it is a short walk from the train station in Plzen to Plzensky Prazdroj brewery and the Pilsner Urquell Visitor Center.

To take a tour, I recommend you buy tickets on-line in advance of going. Tours are conducted for different languages in different time slots. And there are multiple types of tours available.

My wife and I took the standard brewery tour. The tour lasts about 110 minutes. The tour includes a short video about the history of Pilsner Urquell and the brewery, touring 3 generations of brewhouses, the bottling/packaging facility, a video on beer production, a tour of ingredients, a visit to the cellars and sampling a traditional Pilsner Urquell beer produced in wooden vats and barrels.

Plzensky Prazdroj brewery, which is now owned by Asahi, actually produces more than just Pilsner Urquell. Their two main brands are Pilsner Urquell and Gambrinus.

The brewery had a production output of 11 million hectoliters (over 290 million gallons) in 2017. Over 1/3 of their sales are outside of the Czech Republic.

The bottling/production facility processes 120,000 bottles and 100,000 cans of beer per hour. One half of the bottles used are from bottle recycle returns.

Pilsner Urquell beer has actually been in production since 1842. The beer is made with 100% Czech ingredients of Moravian barley, Saaz hops and Plzen water. Also, the yeast was originally cultured in Plzen. Pilsner Urquell is brewed using a triple decoction process – which involves brewing a portion of the mash three times.

Originally Pilsner Urquell was brewed in a metal vat, fermented in open wooden vats and matured/ stored in large wooden barrels.

Today the beer is brewed in copper mash tuns and ferments and matures in stainless steel tanks (I’m just highlighting some of the key steps for simplicity).

The original storage cellars consist of man-made caves that are carved in sandstone.

Originally the caves were cooled with ice collected in winter that was dropped into ice room sections of the cave.

The final leg of the tour ends by sampling Pilsner Urquell beer poured from a large wooden barrel in the cellar.

Touring Plzensky Prazdroj was one of my “bucket list” items to complete. This was the best brewery tour I’ve ever taken.

A huge thank you to my wife, Pinup Pat, for the fantastic photographs.