Pivovar Prachatice: A Great Czech Brewery in a Historic Brewing Town
The story of a historic Czech brewing town and the new brewery which aims to carry on the long tradition.
I can still picture it all so vividly.
After a long day of cycling, we rolled back into Prachatice just in time for a much deserved shower before dinner. I still recall the bike comically vibrating as I traversed Prachatice’s cobblestoned streets.
Shortly, we’d be going to Pivovar Prachatice (Prachatice Brewery), which was located just on the other side of Prachatice’s picturesque main square.
As many know, the beer in the Czech Republic is arguably the best on the planet and, in my eyes, it is the best. That didn’t happen by accident. It’s a result of towns like Prachatice where having a notable brewery evokes genuine pride from the town and surrounding area. It’s the result of obsessively focusing on using the right ingredients and meticulously tracking and refining the brewing process. And it’s the result of breweries carrying on a time honoured tradition, while making their own tweaks in the present day.
Brewing in the Czech Republic is an art form.
In Prachatice, there are records of beer being brewed here as early as 1379, and, as I’ll be writing about today, Pivovar Prachatice aims to continue to do their town proud well into the 21st century.
A Brief History of Beer Making in Prachatice, Czech Republic
By 1436, Prachatice was declared a royal town, and this caused more masters of the malting trade to set up shop in the town. While the importance of the town often fluctuated through the centuries, the town’s reputation as a place to find great beer rarely wavered. In fact, the powerful Rožmberk family even established a brewery here in the 16th century.
All of a sudden, Prachatice wasn’t just brewing beer for itself, but became the de facto supplier of beer for the surrounding area. Instead of battling it, the various local breweries in the town essentially merged with the newly formed Rožmberk family brewery, and this increased both the production and reputation of Prachatice as a notable brewing town.
The town was on the wrong side a conflict shortly thereafter, and it fell from grace, but the town kept on brewing, even if only for its citizens. In 1832, a great fire in the town threatened the existence of a brewery at all. But, of course, Prachatice used this excuse to expand the brewery.
As with so many other things, the World Wars had a negative effect on brewing, but now we find ourselves in the present day in what many people are calling the next great Czech beer revolution. Breweries continue to pop up and serve as community hubs. The modern day Pivovar Prachatice opened its doors in 2015, and since then hasn’t looked back.
The Prachatice Brewery of Today
I mentioned that the brewery that you can visit these days was founded in 2015.
This all started in 2012 when the founders of the brewery took a 2 day brewing course, and then started to put their knowledge to practice. They would take cycling trips across the Czech Republic just to visit craft breweries. I’m told that they visited hundreds of other breweries during their research. Tough work, right?
The current brewer is a man by the name of Michael Neuwirth and, not shockingly for the Czech Republic, his focus is on making great pilsners. However, he also clearly carries properties that he enjoys from the pilsener-style beer and sees how he can make it shine in other styles (such as IPAs or ambers). At Prachatice, they’re very focused on creating a unique and notable bitterness in their beers which highlights the fact that they only use classic ingredients - those being barley, hops, water, and brewer’s yeast. Their beers are unpasteurized and unfiltered, so you’re getting a really raw and natural taste that most beer lovers will really appreciate.
It is, in short, the exact opposite of a beer you’d find a North American brewery focused on mass production and scale.
They aim to source ingredients locally as much as possible - malts from Benešov, hops from Žatec and Škarez, and water from collection tanks that are fed from the springs of Černá Hora and Libín.
What’s On Tap
Appreciating the 12 Světlý Ležák at Pivovar Prachatice staright from the tank.
Shortly after we arrived, I tried their 12 Světlý Ležák (roughly translating to “light lager”), which was a bright golden colour and had the classic Czech bitterness that I’d come to love so dearly. It featured three different types of hops, all from the Czech Republic.
We were also dining at Pivovar Prachatice (and their food is all local and excellent, by the way), but I was personally on a mission to know more about their beer. So, when some of the owners came over to say they’d like to take us down to the brewing vats, I was only too ecstatic.
If I can recall correctly (beer hasn’t always been kind to my memory), we were shown around by David, Ján, and Karel, David and Ján being brothers. Immediately, I appreciated the warmth they showed me. Unlike so many breweries I’ve visited in North America, I felt like the gap between the brewer and the patron was almost non-existent. If anything, I just felt like a friend, and I loved that they too had a beer in their hands, so that, despite the language barrier, we could still clink our glasses and form a bond.
After they explained what vats contained which beer, it was open season. I pointed to a vat, and, like magic, my mug was filled straight from the source. I was, in short, in beer heaven.
I tasted the 11 Světlý ležák, which was a lighter version of the 12 Světlý Ležák, then the IPA 14, which was top fermented to perfection. The 13 Bradáček, is a darker beer, but it’s still crisp and fresh, which is something the Czechs do better than anybody with beer, in my opinion. They also have the Gaston 10.5, which is their easy drinking draft beer.
What all those beers have in common, though, is that they’re all very carefully temperature controlled so that there’s a distinct crispness to the beer. It’s refreshing in a unique way, and you can tell that the purity of the beer would befit a king.
Beyond the Brewery
The roast pork medallions at Pivovar Prachatice. I’d definitely recommend them.
The brewery is, of course, a big part of what they do, but as I mentioned above, they also have a notable restaurant that I’d absolutely recommend when visiting Prachatice. I’d recommend the soups (either Kulajda or the Šumava garlic) with homemade bread if you’re there for lunch. For dinner, you can go in any direction, but the roast pork ribs with horseradish, mustard and homemade bread is hard to beat. The pork tenderloin medallions with mushroom and pepper sauce and roasted potatoes would also be a good choice.
They also opened a guesthouse/pension in 2019. They’ve got seven rooms with a capacity of 22 people, so if you do decide that you’d like to have an extra few beers, you can rest easy knowing there’s always the option to stay the night if they’ve got room! A neat fact about the guesthouse is that all the furniture was made ready to order by local carpenters.
It’s an ideal location since in that it’s right in the centre of Prachatice, but on a quiet side street so that you won’t be disturbed by noise.
Of course, during this time, you should double-check that they’re fully open for visiting, and follow the guidelines of the local authorities related to being safe when dining etc. That being said, I think that if we can safely support small businesses during this time (even if that’s just picking up some beer to go), then that’s something we should do.
As you can see, the brewing tradition of this town goes way back, and Prachatice Pivovar is a spot that deserves to be around for many more years. There’s no doubt that Prachatice is a happier town when they’ve got a great brewery to call their own, and thankfully they’ve been able to enjoy that feeling a fair bit over the past millennium.
Visiting Prachatice, and in particular Pivovar Prachatice, was yet another important reminder that you can’t possibly see and understand the country until you leave the capital. That is to say, Prague is a magical city, but there’s so many more stories to be told, understood, and appreciated.
And that’s why I wanted to tell this story. To encourage you, the reader, to consider visiting a smaller town instead of a bigger city, and to consider the likes of South Bohemia on your next visit. I’ll tell you this, standing in the shadow of sites such as Hluboká Castle, I was awfully happy that I’d had the opportunity to venture beyond Prague.
When the time is right, know that places like Pivovar Prachatice (and the people behind it) await you, and I can assure you that they’re awaiting you with just the right amount of kindness and warmth, and the perfect amount of cold beer.
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