Brewery profile: Budvar Budweiser

Here’s some free advice for you. When faced with a tricky question about the Czech Republic, be it in a history exam or a highbrow dinner party, it’s always a safe bet to describe it as being “in a state of flux”.

Regardless of era, tumult is never far away from the Czech Republic. Military fisticuffs with neighbouring nations litter its history alongside a succession of uninvited invasions and an array of name changes.

The Czechs openly admit to suffering from a bit of an identity crisis. Straddling both east and west Europe, which way do they hang? Even the Czech national anthem (the catchy ditty named “Kde domov muj”) begins with the Czechs unsure of where they live.  

Then again, that may be because they were drunk. No other nation consumes more beer than the Czechs. When it gave the wine-supping Slovakians the slip in 1993, the Czechs usurped the Irish as the biggest beer-drinking country in the world with every citizen, on average, polishing off a staggering 350 litres a year.    

Given its acute abundance of natural brewing resources, it’s no surprise. The world’s most sought-after hop variety, the spicy Saaz, is grown in the northwest region of Zatec while the barley hailing from the Hana plateau along the Moravia River affords Czech beer with its signature malty smoothness. And then there’s the natural water, softer than anywhere else in Europe.

Its brewing heritage is similarly rich and, having survived both Nazi and Communist rule in recent times, really rather robust. Some even argue that the Communist regime helped preserve Czech beer. Yes it may have stifled growth and investment in the breweries but, inadvertently, it froze traditional, time-honoured brewing techniques in time and spared smaller breweries from the clutches of corporate conglomeration.

When the 1989 Velvet Revolution laid out a red carpet for foreign investors, a number of the Czech Republic breweries were bought by outsiders, dusted down and dragged into the 21st century. Others, however, have been shut down by the likes of Heineken and SAB Miller and some, purists would argue, have seen their brewing standards dumbed down to meet market demands.

One brewery that hasn’t had its tires kicked by outside “investors” is the Budweiser Budvar brewery. Based in the town of Ceske Budejovice, a beer town as historically significant as Munich and Pilsen, Budweiser Budvar has been state-owned ever since the end of World War II despite the repeated advances of Anheuser-Busch, with whom it has had a long-standing and highly litigious trademark dispute.

In 1989, when the Communist regime collapsed, the brewery was ramshackle, rundown, bereft of investment and, as such, ripe for takeover. “It was like coming out of a prison into a jungle and ours was a jungle with a great number of predators” recalls Josef Tolar, who was Budweiser Budvar’s brewmaster from 1985 to 2009. “Within weeks of a free market emerging, Anheuser-Busch was lobbying the Czech government for the right to purchase the Budvar brewery in a deal reportedly worth just $1.5m for lock, stock and barrel.”

Tolar, a keen bee-keeper and the first Czech brewer to brew a non-alcoholic beer, was instrumental in persuading the ruling party that the brewery, even in its moribund condition, was worth keeping – not least because Budvar had established a strong export business – and he had the backing of an enormous, impassioned workforce.

“There were people in the streets, with protests and demonstrations all over Ceske Budejovice”, said Tolar. “The trade unions threatened to strike and barricade the brewery if it was released from state hands and, after much negotiation, we gained our independence.” Tolar, like others, realised that Budvar was in no position to compete in the open market on its own and requested that it remained in state hands.

“Anheuser-Busch has tried to buy the brewery since 1989 but we know what would happen if it did, we’d disappear and go the dreaded way of other breweries that have been bought by the major multi-nationals,” added Tolar. “We have remained in the hands of the state but this has not been to any disadvantage whatsoever – we’ve remained loyal to long lagering times and the Czech taxpayer has made a lot of money out of selling Budvar beer”.

Today, the Budvar Brewery isn’t just state-owned, it’s state-of-the-art too. The Czech government is a lot more generous to beer than its British counterpart – since 1989, a total investment of 2.5bn Czech crowns – the equivalent of more than 400million Czech crowns each year, has upgraded the brewery and bought a new bottling and keg filling line; new cylindrical conical fermenters an expansion of horizontal lagering facilities; an all-singing, all-dancing automatic distribution depot; and an impressive and highly  interactive visitor centre which includes a highly entertaining,  unusual and terribly badly translated 3D film depicting its on-going battle with those meddling folk from Missouri.

Investment has improved consistency yet, crucially, not compromised on quality. While rose-tinted remembrance of the brewery’s traditional open fermenters, replaced in 1993 by steel conical alternatives, may bring a tear to the traditionalist’s eye, Budvar’s brewing integrity remains very much intact. 

There’s been no compromise on the length of lagering. Budweiser Budvar’s flagship pale lager, with its muted and gentle hop bitterness, matures for 90 days while Bud Super Strong, a muscular malt-driven golden beer, doesn’t leave until it’s sat there for 200 days.

In 2001, these beers were joined by a dark lager. While Tolar initially doubted the wisdom of reviving a beer style synonymous with pensioners and the past, his deputy Ales Dvorak recognised potential retro rewards and designed a dark lager with a contemporary twist.

In the UK, which represents a sizeable chunk of Budvar’s export market (40% of its production), Budvar dark lager is currently being served alongside Budweiser Budvar Original as a blend of two beers – a thinking drinker’s ‘half-and-half’ – in select on-trade venues.

Budvar UK, the bespoke business that looks after the brewery’s British operation, is also looking to release a limited edition krausened (freshly fermented wort is added to the beer to keep it alive and super fresh) version of Budweiser Budvar pale lager. Krausening involves adding fresh wort to the unpasteurised beer, giving it added carbonation, freshness, sharpness and a fuller flavour. Up until now, the product has rarely been available beyond the brewery cellars and a few restaurants.

Here’s another piece of free advice for you: Drink it. It’s the true “king of beers”.

Ben McFarland, 16.04.2010