On our way from Nuremberg to Prague, we stopped in Pilsen overnight to tour the Pilsner Urquell brewery and have their beer straight from the source. Due to a series of comedic errors (getting on the wrong half of the train and when it detached we were no longer on the right train) then subsequent train delays, we missed our tour. But we did still get to try the beer straight from the source! We were supposed to take train RE40 from Nuremberg to Schwandorf (about an hour) then change trains to Pilsen (about 2 hours). On the regional trains like this, you don’t reserve seats (relevant because reserved seats would have put us in a specific car) and I clearly didn’t read the sign below well enough. We were supposed to be on the train heading in the direction of Regensburg but instead ended up on the cars going to Hof. Looking back at the sign (this sign was from later on when we got off the train but it was a similar sign in Nuremberg), I can now see where we were supposed to be. They did make an announcement when we got to the station where they split but unfortunately by the time they finished the announcement in English, we didn’t have time to grab our bags and get off the train. I ended up trying to search future stops to see if we could switch somewhere else but we ended up just getting off and backtracking. Unfortunately these trains only ran about once an hour so it was a costly mistake time-wise. Chalk it up to a travel adventure! Between accidentally booking the Nuremberg Arts bunker tour in German and then this, it was definitely a week of travel adventures. We eventually made it just before 5pm (after starting off on a 09:40 AM train that should have been 3 hours total). Oops. But we made it safely!
Once we got into Pilsen, we checked into our hotel (Vienna House Easy by Wyndham Pilsen; https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/en-uk/vienna-house/pilsen-czech-republic/vienna-house-easy-pilsen/overview?CID=LC:6qt7c54dekbf1g7:57415&iata=00093796). It was close to the train station and also across the street from the Pilsner Urquell brewery (convenient!). Once we got checked in, we headed across the street to their bar to try the beer (Pivní Bar Spilka; https://maps.app.goo.gl/TkdNRzbiNSixYGh29). One cool thing is you can get the beer unfiltered and unpasteurized – and you can only get it that way at the brewery.
Pilsner Urquell can be found all over the world and you’ve probably had one at some point. And you’ve also probably had a “pilsner” beer – a style that was basically born in Pilsen/Plzeň. It started in 1842 with Bavarian brewer named Josef Groll. Here’s what Pilsner Urquell has to say about it:
“Josef Groll changed beer forever when he brewed Pilsner Urquell for the first time in 1842. People had been drinking beer since about 7,000 BC, but no one had ever seen or tasted a golden lager quite like this. For thousands of years, beer was flavoured with a combination of fruits and spices called ‘gruit’. These sickly sweet beers took on the colour of the malt used during brewing. Depending on whether or not the malt was roasted, the beer had a colour from pale yellow to dark brown or even black.
In the 19th century, brewing was hugely popular in Plzeň, but no one could get it right. So a group of beer lovers hired Josef Groll, a talented Bavarian brewer, and built him a state-of-the-art brewery. He chose the finest local ingredients: soft Plzeň water, delicately bitter Saaz hops with a characteristic crisp flavour and aroma, and double-row Moravian barley, combined with a bottom-fermenting yeast.
Groll created a crisp, refreshing golden lager—Pilsner Urquell. His beer was perfect, and everyone who tasted it agreed. That’s why most beers in the world today are pilsner-style lagers, and why we still brew Pilsner Urquell like Josef Groll did at our original brewery in Plzeň.”
This article has a more detailed history (and maybe a bit less romantic than the one on the Pilsner Urquell site): https://www.beervanablog.com/beervana/2020/5/20/7/making-classic-pilsner-urquell.
They really like their foam in Pilsen …. you can get your beer 1 of 3 ways with varying levels of foam (well 4 ways if you include the zero foam option). We got the standard one (crème Urquell). We got one unfiltered and unpasteurized and the other one regular so we could compare. We like the unfiltered one better.
After that, we walked into the main square to see Pilsen then headed back to our hotel for the night.
Before we left the next morning, we decided to go back to the brewery one more time for another unfiltered beer since you can’t get it anywhere else.
Then we hopped on the short (1hr) train ride to Prague. Cheers!
