Beer in the Czech Republic (Czech: pivo) has a long and storied history. The first brewery is known to have existed in 1118. The city of Brno had the right to brew beer from the 12th century, and the two cities most associated with Czech beer, Plzeň and České Budějovice (Pilsen and Budweis in German), had breweries in the 13th century.
Hops have been grown in the region for a long time, and were used in beer making and exported from here since the twelfth century. The Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption per capita in the world.
The most famous Czech beer brands (and the most exported ones) are Pilsner Urquell, which was the world's first pilsner and pale lager beer, and Budweiser Budvar (in some countries trademarked as Budějovický Budvar or Czechvar). Other well known brands include: Velkopopovický Kozel, Gambrinus, Radegast, Staropramen, Krušovice, Starobrno, Bernard and Svijany.
Read more about Beer In The Czech Republic: History, Beer in Brno and South Moravia, Modern Beer Styles, Festivals
Famous quotes containing the words beer, czech and/or republic:
“What two ideas are more inseparable than beer and Britannia?”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)
“I’m neither Czech nor Slovak ... I’m still trying to figure out who I am. I think I’m Jewish. But first I want to be human.”
—Natasha Dudinska (b. c. 1967)
“It was the most ungrateful and unjust act ever perpetrated by a republic upon a class of citizens who had worked and sacrificed and suffered as did the women of this nation in the struggle of the Civil War only to be rewarded at its close by such unspeakable degradation as to be reduced to the plane of subjects to enfranchised slaves.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)