Christmas Challenge of Pilsner Urquell Barrel Makers

Christmas Challenge of Pilsner Urquell Barrel Makers

Do you like working with wood? Then make a donation to decorate the Christmas tree in the yard. Bring a wooden Christmas tree decoration made by you to the brewery by Friday 19 December and receive a gift beer.

FURTHER INFORMATION

A Christmas star and wooden decorations made by the barrel makers of the Pilsner Urquell Brewery decorated a twenty-five-year-old fir tree on Friday 28 November. To promote one of the oldest ways of working with wood the barrel makers, as representatives of this traditional craft with wood at its source, invite the general public and anyone who enjoys working with wood to contribute to decorating the Christmas tree with a self-made wooden ornament.

The decorations will be ceremonially hung on the Christmas tree on Friday 19 December and every participant will receive a small beer gift.

The twenty-five-year-old fir tree was received by the brewery from one of its long-term fans. “We obtained the tree from an old lover of Pilsner lager, the eighty-four-year-old Jiří Burda of Hradčany u Chlumčan,” says Jindřiška Eliášková, manager of tourism development and care of historic heritage at the Pilsner Urquell Brewery. “He planted the tree in 1989, the year of the velvet revolution, and donated it to us as a symbol of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the revolution, during which time the brewery has travelled a long way forward and Pilsner lager has spread the fame of Czech beer and the art of Czech brewers all around the world,” she adds.

The barrel makers, who throughout the course of the year manufacture and maintain the traditional oak barrels, helped carry the tree to the brewery yard and erect it in its centre as a symbol of Christmas. “The barrel makers will place a hand-carved star of Bethlehem on the top of the tree and light it up, who also launch a call to all craftsmen and other people who like working with wood to contribute to the Christmas tree decoration with their home-made ornaments by bringing them in on Friday 19 December. Ideally they will have a brewery-related theme,” continues Jindřiška Eliášková.

Five days before Christmas all of the contributors to the Christmas tree decoration will gather around the tree to receive a gift beer for Christmas. The barrel makers will choose the nicest of the ornaments and will reward their authors with some beer for their Christmas dinner. “People can bring in their home-made decorations to the Brewery Visitor Centre by 19 December,” concluded Jindřiška Eliášková, adding that the decorations will stay suspended on the Christmas tree during the Christmas holiday as promotion of the skills of Czech people to be admired by visitors to the brewery from all around the world.

In the case of further questions about the invitation of the Pilsner Urquell barrel makers please contact Vlastislav Štrunc by phone on: 724 617 366