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This is a restaurant at the Pilsner Urquell brewery in Pilsen, Czech Republic - but other, smaller, breweries are fighting back to stay in the market too. AP Photo/Petr David Josek

Czech's historic breweries trying to get back on tap

The country drinks the most beer in the world per head of population but its indigenous brewing industry is having to innovate.

RISING FROM THE ashes after closure or near-collapse, historic Czech breweries are getting back on tap with new owners seeking to tickle the taste buds of the world’s greatest beer lovers with exotic new flavours.

Along with a wave of new micro-breweries, these revamped elders – many with several hundred years of beer-making under their belts – are offering an alternative to the Czech Republic’s world-famous trademark bottom-fermented lagers in a market cornered by the multinationals.

With beer drinking harking back more than 2,000 years and with their oldest brewery dating from 993, Czechs are proud of their national tipple which in most pubs is cheaper than bottled water.

They rank as the world’s keenest beer drinkers, having guzzled 145 litres of the tipple per head in 2011, according to industry statistics.

First opened in 1710, the Unetice brewery just north of the capital Prague spent six decades mothballed after it was closed in 1951, three years after the Communists took over.

Now, thanks to a husband and wife team, who are using their experience gained from working in a large brewery, the suds are back.

“We took a walk through the village and saw the building with a sign saying ‘brewery’,” said Lucie Tkadlecova, who runs the brewery with her partner.

Speciality beer

They snapped up the vast facility tucked away in a valley with the help of investors, equipped it with cutting-edge technology and expect to turn a profit next year.

Unetice turned out almost 6,000 hectolitres of beer in 2012. Tkadlecova said the brewery, currently employing just six people, should ultimately produce 10,000 hectolitres of non-filtered and specialty beer annually.

“With the expansion, we will probably have to hire two people, which is a dramatic increase percentage wise,” she chuckled.

The former Czechoslovakia, which split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993, inherited about 150 large industrial breweries after World War II.

The number fell to about 90 during the command-economy era under Communist rule between 1948-89, then slid to under 50 after the switch to the market economy when Communism was toppled and foreign giants deluged the market.

Two decades on, some of those shuttered breweries are reopening their doors, despite the overwhelming dominance of giants Pilsner Urquell owned by SABMiller and Molson Coors’ Pivovary Staropramen.

47 industrial breweries and 150 microbreweries

“We have 47 industrial breweries and about 150 microbreweries” in the Czech Republic, said Jan Vesely, head of the Czech Beer and Malt Association.

“None has gone under recently – on the contrary, some have re-emerged, which is a good sign,” he added.

Pulled back from the edge of collapse in 2011, the Pivovar Vyskov brewery is betting its future on the wide array of beers – including stouts and ales – it exports to Germany, Russia, the Baltic states, Hungary and Slovakia.

“The brewery was built in 1680, so it would be a terrible shame if it went under,” said marketing director Roman Holoubek of the brewery, located some 230 kilometres (144 miles) southeast of Prague.

“When we took it over, it was totally down in terms of business and marketing,” Holoubek said, adding the brewery was then producing only a sliver of its installed capacity of 100,000 hectolitres.

India pale ale, wheat beer and stout

Last year the business posted a slight loss after raising output by 47 percent against 2011 to 22,000 hectolitres of lager as well as India pale ale, wheat beer and stout.

The brewery has won regional awards as well as medals in Japan since its last-gasp recovery and expects to turn a profit this year, Holoubek said.

But despite the current thirst for novelty beers, small breweries still make up only one percent of total Czech beer output and consumption, and experts say they are unlikely to pose serious competition in a market dominated by multinationals.

“They make the market interesting, they spice it up, but they have no impact on the market as a whole,” Vesely said.

“It’s nice, but it can’t affect the way the world has turned,” he added.

© AFP 2013

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    Mute marcoop
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:25 AM

    3 ios apps, 1 for android being a football app, and instagram! Wow its 2010 again!….not a very broad appeal. I’m going to go all out and say this selection is shite! Sorry fella, you tried.

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    Mute Helen Dwyer
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:29 AM

    I agree, show us some android! Or at least apps that are crossed on both platforms :)

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    Mute Paul Nolan
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 11:07 AM

    A few worth while Android apps for ya, first of all

    UTorrent: download all the torrents you do on your home computer except straight to your smartphone. FREE

    SwiftKey:is also amazing at the start I thought I would never actually use it but it saves so much time now I couldn’t use a phone without it. NOT FREE

    Accatracker:for those Android fans who like gambling and doing accumulators this thing is amazing it was already on ios but it’s now on android. FREE

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    And last but not least Zedge: have pretty much any ringtone or wallpaper you like and even if you don’t want a new one u mite just get an idea from the favorites list. FREE

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    Mute Rory K
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 12:32 PM

    I am shocked and appalled to learn that the author of the article has the…the….the CHEEK to not consider what type of phone Marcoop uses, or even what kind of apps Marcoop specifically wants to see in a list like this.

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    Mute marcoop
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 1:23 PM

    ’5 worth downloading apps’is the title.. They could’ve done 3 apps specific to each platform and 2 that are available across all three platforms..I.e broadness..just a suggestion thats all, wouldn’t get too hung up on it Rory..

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    Mute Phileas Fogg
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 1:32 PM

    Try Pirate Legends on iOS. It’s free, made in Ireland and awesome :) :)

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    Mute Rory K
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:26 PM

    Dead right Marcoop, ill try thinking before typing next time. Sound.

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    Mute Sean Costello
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:38 AM

    The vast majority of smartphone users in this country have phones running Android. Giving one Android app out of five is odd to say the least.

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    Mute Dusty O'Brien
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:31 AM

    Would have to agree – far too iPhone based, little of interest here for me.

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    Mute Philip Kenna
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:57 AM

    Aah I’m gone off apps

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    Mute Barry O Mahoney
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 1:29 PM

    There an app for that.

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    Mute Jim
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 6:53 PM

    Cos you having got a I phone

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    Mute Little Jim
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:57 AM

    I came in here all excited and I’m sloping off disheartened.
    One review and I don’t even like soccer, bad form!

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    Mute Joe Traynor
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 10:26 AM

    Anything with in app purchase instant delete. Should be banned €70 for level unlock so some kid gets duped into buying on parents phone should be illegal.

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    Mute Roisin Byrne
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 3:05 PM

    You can turn off in app purchases quite easily though

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    Mute Andy
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 4:03 PM

    Yeah you should totally be able to make in game purchases! Just turn off in game purchases or use a PIN number if you don’t want your kids buying stuff. It’s not that hard to control what you buy.

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    Mute Aaron
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 11:44 AM

    Android users = Bitter people

    They can’t go without commenting on the iPhone or ios in a badway, just pettiness at this stage

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    Mute Loop De Loop
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 12:53 PM

    Aaron

    Android users : hoping to get an iPhone for Xmas !!!

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    Mute Cormac Kennedy
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 10:24 AM

    Nonsense article.

    “All hail the iPhone, King of all smartphones!”

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    Mute Dublinjonny
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:45 AM

    41mega pixel Lumia ….. tempted to delve into windows 8 mobile for something like that

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    Mute Owen Sherry
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:59 AM

    #shit

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    Mute Albert McEinstein
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 10:24 AM

    Owen’s contribution is certainly not over elaborate and some would say succinct.

    Whilst he conveys his immediate impressions of the article/content/contributor in his brief analysis, the reader is left hungry for more.

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    Mute NokiaNewsIreland
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 11:05 AM

    Once again the journal and windows phone, did anyone do any research here?

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    Mute Damocles
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 9:55 AM

    Android users download ingress.

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    Mute Alan Kiely
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    Nov 24th 2013, 10:19 AM

    We are not all apple fanboys

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    Mute Emmet Walsh
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    Nov 23rd 2013, 6:09 PM

    This article is too mainstream for me.

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    Mute Tracey McEvoy
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    Nov 24th 2013, 7:06 AM

    I love Orkland Castle Defence for Android. Level 1 free then purchase the next 6 levels for 0.75c. NO in game purchases. Brilliant game.

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    Mute Jason Meagher
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    Nov 24th 2013, 1:56 AM

    Get clumsy ninja…great fun and free :)

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