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A Pilsner beer pilgrimage

By DANIEL LOVERING   Associated Press Writer

PLZEN, Czech Republic — Order a beer at a restaurant or bar, and unless you’ve requested an ale, porter or stout, you’ll probably be served the clear, golden brew behind our most familiar brands: Pilsner. • And this is its ancestral home. •Mugs of frothy beer served in this cobblestone-studded city southwest of Prague may resemble others the world over, but a trip to the local brewery confirms these are no ordinary suds.

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A bartender pours a glass of beer at a restaurant in the Pilsner Urquell factory in Pilsen, Czech Republic, recently. The faintly bitter lager first produced in the Pilsner Urquell factory more than a century ago gave rise to a style of beer that has since circled the globe. Much of today’s lager-style beer, in fact, owes its flaxen color and crisp flavor to a brewing process formulated in this small metropolis in the Czech Republic’s Bohemia region. Its name still reflects its origins: Pilsner, Pilsener, or sometimes just Pils.

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A worker walks past beer kettles at the Pilsner Urquell factory in Pilsen, Czech Republic. The faintly bitter lager first produced in the Pilsner Urquell factory more than a century ago gave rise to a style of beer that has since circled the globe.

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The faintly bitter lager first produced in Plzen more than a century ago gave rise to a style of beer that has since circled the globe. Much of today’s lager-style beer, in fact, owes its flaxen color and crisp flavor to a brewing process formulated in this small metropolis in the Czech Republic’s Bohemia region. Its name still reflects its origins: Pilsner, Pilsener, or sometimes just Pils.

The beer’s precise birthplace, the Pilsner Urquell brewery, stands on the city’s fringes, enclosed by an ornate 19th century double archway. Its copper kettle-lined confines have changed with the times, but visitors can still see hints of the past, including a network of underground tunnels once used to store huge casks of fermenting beer.

Julie Johnson, editor of All About Beer magazine in Durham, N.C., noted that the beer’s name, Urquell, means “the original source” in German.

“Pilsner beer is the ancestor of the kind of global international lager style that makes up 90-something percent of the beer we drink today,” she said, pointing to brands such as Budweiser, Rolling Rock and St. Pauli Girl. “Those are all indebted to Pilsner.”

In a nod to the beer born in Plzen, American brewers of the 19th century created “something that was much softer for the American palate,” she said. “That, in turn, has swept the world.”

Pilsner, and pale ales that emerged around the same time, stood out because “they were light, they were beautiful to look at,” Johnson said.

The beers owed their attractive look to malt made from barley that had been heated evenly using an indirect source — then a revolutionary technique. Earlier malt may have been partly burned, producing beer with “a darker and roastier taste,” she said.

The malt’s consistent quality yielded exceptionally clear beer, and its emergence coincided with the spread of glassware that allowed drinkers to admire its appearance.

“So you had a beer that appealed to the eye as well as the nose and mouth,” Johnson said, “and people were just struck dumb by how lovely and beautiful it was.”

Pilsner Urquell’s flavor, which is dry rather than fruity like an ale, comes from local ingredients such as the locally grown hops, known as Saaz hops, she added.

Visitors to the brewery can sample that flavor at the end of a guided tour that last about an hour and-a-half and ends in one of the underground cellars used to store barrels of fermenting beer in the days before refrigeration.

One guide, Katerina Sedlackova, attested to the qualities of Plzen’s namesake beer, offering cups of the drink — freshly made, unpasteurized and drawn from one of a few remaining wooden barrels kept in service.

“You should know that Pilsner Urquell is very healthy,” she exhorts, referring to nutrients such as vitamin B. “If you drink a cup of beer a day, you should stay healthy.”

If you go

Pilsner Urquell: http://www.pilsner-urquell.com/. Brewery: http://www.prazdroj.cz/en/ or 011-420-377-062-888.

Plzen, Czech Republic: Official site of Plzen: http://www.plzen.eu/en/home/index.html

Brewery Tours: 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. daily May-September (no 10:30 a.m. tours October-April). Tickets are about $6.50 (130 Czech Korunas). Brewery also has a restaurant and gift shop.