Following a reconstruction, which should be completed next year, the company plans to renew the beer brewing in a mini-brewery, which will replace the brewery abolished in 1925. Ing. Jan Šuráň, the president of the Czech-Moravian Association of Small Brewers, was also present at the opening and the first tasting.
“In nearly 130 years that our research institute exists, we have so far never had an opportunity to explore such a historic finding of approximately hundred-year-old beers,” RNDr. Karel Kosař, CSc. explains. “It is true that many beer admirers would much rather use the found beers for personal tasting, but the given volume will only allow for careful and complex laboratory analyses. Nevertheless, I am still expecting the research results with great tension,” Karel Kosař added with a smile.
The first meeting of the Establishing committee of the Agrarian stock brewery with a malt house in Záhlinice took place on the 25th February 1895, and the construction of the brewery was initiated as early as in April. In February 1896, there were two types of beer available for tasting already; respecting the past terminology it was the ordinary beer, which would today be the draught beer, and the bock beer, today’s lager. However, the planned production of 40,000 hl has never been achieved. During the years 1907/8, the maximum production amounted to 28,539 hl. The war years greatly influenced the overall production in a negative way. In the last campaign of the years 1921/1922, only 700 hl of beer was brewed, and therefore the production was terminated in 1921. The brewery was abolished for good in 1925. It is interesting to point out that one of the prominent Czech painters, Mikoláš Aleš, created an advertisement poster for the stock brewery in Záhlinice in 1896, and it has been preserved.
“Using the most advanced machines and scientific methods we have available, we will try to reveal the ingredients and the way the beers were brewed, and to assess them from the physical-chemical and microbiological point of view. We will also try to explore the sensory-active substances and to guess the original type of the beer,” says Ing. Věra Hönigová, research manager at the Research Institute of Brewing and Malting, a.s. We will try to find the link between the modern Czech beer and these historical beers, and to carry out a number of quality comparisons,” Věra Hönigová added.
The results of the research, which is assumed to intrigue the professional public both at home and abroad, will be published in professional scientific media.