The dawn of brewing beer in Pilsen
Beer began to be brewed in Pilsen shortly after the royal city was founded in 1295. The right to malt, brew and serve beer was hereditary and always linked to a burgher's house. This right was received from King Wenceslaus II by 250 Pilsen burghers. However, for more than seven hundred years they brewed top-fermented beer or rather poor quality, causing better beer to be imported to Pilsen from Bavaria or Saxony and cheaper beer from closer by.
A new era
In 1839 the licensed brewers decided to join together and become shareholders in a modern brewery, which was to produce sufficient quality beer. In 1842 the Burghers
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Brewery opened its gates for the first time to welcome the acknowledged expert from Bavaria, the brewer Josef Groll. Not yet thirty, he succeeded in brewing the first brew of the golden, crisp and exceptionally tasty bottom-fermented beer - Pilsen lager.
Imagine the sense of wonder when its golden colour glittered and the snow-white head rose above it; how drinkers were amazed when they encountered the crisp, remarkable taste, till then unknown among beers, in which this domestic product gloried" recorded the chronicler.
Imports to Pilsen ceased as the renown of the new beer quickly spread. And not only through Pilsen. The Pilsen beer quickly began to be exported. This was due in large part to the carriers, whose heavy wagons crossed from town to town. The interest in the Pilsen lager was extraordinary - it soon reached the west Bohemian spas, where it was discovered by rih patients from the German lands and France, and it gradually won admirers around the world, including America in the 1870s. c In the meantime there were attempts both at home and abroad to imitate it, leading the Burghers
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Brewery in 1859 to register the Pilsen beer (Pilsner Bier) trade mark in 1859. The number of breweries in Pilsen multiplied, all producing Pilsen beer and profiting from the fame of the beer produced by the Burghers
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Brewery. This resulted in another change. In 1898 (apparently in cooperation with the Berlin commercial representatives of the Burghers
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Brewery) the Pilsner Urquell (in Czech Plzeňský Prazdroj) trade mark was registered.
In this respect it should be pointed out that beers with the name Pils, Pilsner or Pilsener are today produced by hundreds of breweries around the world and their consumers do not associate them with the city of Pilsen but only with the type of outstanding, strongly hoppy golden light lager which was first brewed in the Pilsen Burghers
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Brewery in 1842.
The beer of unsurpassed quality, comparable in its appearance with a work of art, is a symbol of the skill and ability of the Czech nation. It is an effective and purely friendly way of spreading the country's good name around the whole world. By its originality Pilsner Urquell inspires brewers, artists, entrepreneurs and millions of people who sit down at a table with friends.