Budweiser in Budejovice

Woke up refreshed after a good night’s sleep and headed downstairs for our breakfast buffet. We enjoyed yogurt, granola, and pastries before taking our coffee with us into the foyer to figure out some details regarding our return flight home. After spending a couple hours working on travel plans, we were ready to venture out for the afternoon to the nearby city called Cesky Budejovice, the regional capital of South Bohemia. Excited to get going on our day’s adventure, we jumped on the next local bus heading out of town.

 Our first stop upon arriving in Cesky Budejovice was to the only nationally owned brewery in the Czech Republic, Budweiser Budvar. This name may sound familiar to many of you as the Anheuser-Busch owned Budweiser, but the two beer companies are actually completely separate. The Budweiser that so many Americans drink was actually an imitation of the Bohemian beer and legal disputes continue to this day concerning rights to the brand name. The original brewers in Cesky Budejovice were German and their literal translation of Budejovice is Budweis… hence the origin of the name Budweiser.

We arrived at the Budweiser Budvar Brewery just in time for a group tour of the facility. Our Czech tour guide led us to various parts of the brewery and provided commentary about the history of Budweiser Budvar and the brewing process.

Sam’s favorite part of the tour was when our guide led us to the cellar that was 35 degree fahrenheit (hence why Teah is all bundled up in some of the pics) and we were offered a tasting of the beer before it gets filtered and sent to the bottling plant. We both were impressed by the flavor but already knew it was tasty as it wasn’t our first Budweiser Budvar during our travels. For you American Budweiser fans at home… this beer is hands down better and actually has flavor compared to the American watered down stuff.

Another highlight of the tour was walking through the bottling factory that has a bottling capacity of 40,000 bottles an hour. Even though it was Saturday and the factory was not in action, we were still impressed by the size and vast amounts of machinery necessary for the production of the Budvar Beer.

After completing our tour of the brewery, we headed over to the town’s main plaza, which is one of the largest town squares in Europe (we could have sworn that each country we have been to has made this same claim). The large central fountain and the beautiful buildings that surround the plaza immediately impressed us upon entering the town square.

Hungry from our beer tour and walk into town, we grabbed a traditional Czech bite to eat consisting of fried pork and two different types of dumplings. We washed the meal down with a couple of large beers and headed over to an ice cream shop that we scoped out during our hunt for a tasty lunch.

All filled back-up, we made our way to the bus station where we hopped back on the local bus to Cesky Krumlov. Our bus let us off near the center of town, so we strolled over a couple bridges and found a cellar restaurant that was recommended to us by Peter. We walked down a narrow spiral staircase 2-3 levels below grade and found ourselves in a cavernous-like restaurant. The food quality was just as good as the ambience and we were quite happy with our host’s referral. Sam ordered pork tenderloin with grilled veggies and Jennifer chose a “Krumburger” (tasted like meatloaf, made of pork and beef) over a bed of lettuce. To top the night off we walked up to the town’s Catholic church, grabbed a chimney sugary treat for each of us, a bottle of wine, and headed back to the hotel to relax.