Unfiltered Lager at the Pilsner Urquell Brewery

In 1842, a frustrated Bohemian town dumped 36 barrels of bad beer into the street and hired a Bavarian brewer named Josef Groll to fix things. What he produced — a clear, golden, bottom-fermented lager using local Saaz hops and remarkably soft Pilsen water — was so different from anything that existed that it effectively invented a new category. Today, roughly 90% of all beer brewed on earth is a Pilsner. Most of it is a pale imitation of what you can drink in the original brewery's underground cellars.

The Pilsner Urquell brewery offers tours of the sandstone cellars where the beer was traditionally lagered for 90 days in massive oak barrels. At the end of the tour, a barman draws unfiltered, unpasteurised tank beer directly from the lagering vessels. It looks like cloudy honey. It tastes like the memory of every good pint you have ever had, clarified and perfected. The difference between this and what is exported in bottles is not subtle.

Pilsen itself is a pleasant surprise — a proper Bohemian city with a vast central square, excellent food, and none of Prague's tourist saturation. The brewery dominates the west side of the city, its chimney visible from the train station. Come for a morning tour, drink the cellar beer, take a late lunch in the brewery restaurant, and take the afternoon train back to Prague through Bohemian countryside.